


Nice Scream, You Scream, We All Scream

by CynicalGamer



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, I know where this is going finally, Multi, Plot Twists, Reader has no defined gender, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 02:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 48,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4859792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynicalGamer/pseuds/CynicalGamer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years after the True Pacifist Ending, you, the Reader, work at a Nice Cream Stall with an insufferable co-worker and try to balance your school life with your new monster-filled social life</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Nice Cream Stall

**Author's Note:**

> This is trash, I am trash  
> Let's be trash together!
> 
> This is my first fanfiction in maybe a year, so I'm super rusty, sorry!

When the monsters came to the surface, no one knew what to make of it. Not you, the government, or even the monsters themselves. However, in just a quick five or so years, life had fallen into a set motion for everyone, a waterwheel that constantly flowed with the monotony of everyday activities and routines. The monsters didn’t need terribly much, they didn’t even eat food quite like humans and they certainly knew how to fend for themselves. One thing required adjustment, though, and that was because everyone needed a purpose. Monsters, included.

That was how you found yourself where you were, selling something called Nice Cream on a barren street where cars didn’t even drive. Your customers didn’t amount to much, despite the popularity of Nice Cream skyrocketing after the first or so year of Monsters. The location simply wasn’t the best, but you did receive the occasional customer from time to time, and it was usually a Monster. Even after all this time, you still were put on edge by them, just how different and varying they were. You almost never saw two that were similar. (Almost, but you’ll get to that). It was hard to set aside your prejudice, no matter how hard you tried, you can’t just unlearn it all at once. Not all at once, at least.

It would be a lie, though, if you said you weren’t a bit pissed off at a certain Monster. Your co-worker, that is, if you could even call him that. He was a skeleton, short and, oddly enough, rather round. Sans was his name, and you have said maybe three words to him in your three months of working together. Again, if you can even call it that. He never showed up. Like, ever. The first day you were on the job, he didn’t even say hello, but he did introduce himself.

“I’m Sans. Hope you like selling Nice Cream.”

You kinda nodded, but didn’t say anything else. He was somehow intimidating despite his short stature and constant smile. Maybe that was what frightened you? At the time, you hadn’t understood what his statement meant, but you quickly figured it out over the next few days. Sans was there, maybe five minutes, but the second you looked away to serve a customer, he was gone, and he was gone until the end of the day. Once it was closing time, you saw him again, and said your first, and only, words to him.

“Where were you?” It came out sharper than you intended.

“Break. I take those.” He was so casual about it, grabbing half the tips from the jar, counting them, and then shoving them in his pocket as he walked away. Needless to say you were absolutely speechless. He never said much, just as much as he saw fit, and then he would leave. What an asshole.

Now, some days, another skeleton would come by, looking for Sans. He was rather tall, overly fond of himself, and quite loud in comparison to the usual crowd for the area. Somehow, you never caught his name or relation to Sans, just shook your head no whenever he stopped by. Sometimes the skeleton left a tip without even buying Nice Cream, just because he felt guilty for bothering you. You liked him, he seemed pretty nice. Obnoxious, but like, in a charming way, if that makes any sense. You wondered what relation he had to Sans, because it seemed he cared about the other’s whereabouts. Who were you to assume, though.

It had been three months. Three months of working alone, by all definition, and a part of you wondered if you could get Sans to stay. So you hatched a plan.

You woke in your small apartment, blankets half off the bed and your hair disheveled. It was a Tuesday morning, and you had work.  
Getting out of bed, you stretched and yawned, a grogginess washing over you. School started back up next week and you wondered about the fate of the Nice Cream stall, seeing as you planned to quit on Friday. If you didn’t find a way to trick Sans into working by then, you had no idea what would happen. It was game day, and you had your game day face on. Oh...no don’t strain your face like that.

Uniform on, you headed out the door, It was cloudy and cold that day, which was perfect for your plan. Very few people buy Nice Cream when it’s colder out, so you could, theoretically, just maybe, keep an eye on Sans today. He only ever ‘took breaks’ when you weren’t looking, so maybe if you keep his in your sights constantly, he’ll never leave and actually help! It was brilliant, perfect, even! Only you could ever craft such a perfect plan. Oh great, now you sound like that _other_ skeleton.

As you made it to the stall, you immediately saw Sans, eyes closed, hands in pockets, not even wearing the uniform, because why would he? When you drew closer, his right eye opened and he looked at you. A shiver went down your spine. That didn’t stop you, though, you kept staring at him, even as you walked around to your station and flipped the sign to say open, you kept your eyes right on his face. Er...skull. Thing. Head. His head made no sense, how do you even have bone eyelids?! Ugh, that didn’t matter.

The first customer arrived, and you still managed to resist the urge to look away from Sans, who had been and continued to stare straight ahead with that large smile of his. Asshole. You were so focused on thinking of him as an asshole, you ended up missing the dismount of nice cream to a cone completely, and covered your own hand in the cold substance. You cringed, fumbling around for a napkin and attempting to fix the mess you made. So much for a tip. Sans stared straight ahead, but his grin only got bigger, as if he saw and thought it was hilarious, but didn’t want to laugh in your face. Asshole. This time you managed to plop in the right place and shoved your hand out so that the customer could take their treat. They did, but with a grunt of disapproval and, as you expected, no tip could be heard. Asshole. Oh, not them, just Sans. The customer is always right.

This went on for more than twenty minutes, and just as you suspected, as long as you watched Sans, he didn’t move from his spot. Aha! It worked! Kind of. He still wasn’t doing anything to help, and he definitely wasn’t even looking at you! The nerve!  
This continued all day, however, and you luckily only had five customers who came by. All disappointed by your work, no doubt. Sans still was there, unmoving, staring straight ahead.

As the day came to a close, you finally broke the stare and flipped the sign to closed. When you turned to look again, Sans was gone, and you felt the frustration boil up inside you. Until of course….

“You were staring at me.” It came from behind you. You whipped around and saw Sans with a tilted head staring right at you. Same big, stupid grin, though. You opened your mouth to speak, but nothing came out. How do you even respond to that?  
“I mean, I may be a bonehead, but I can’t be THAT fun to watch. Unless there was some _other_ reason?” Oh god, what was he insinuating?! “But kudos, you kept me around. Now I’ll make like a skeleton and rattle on out of here.” Just as he began to reach for the near empty tip jar, you felt a voice actually come up out of you.

“Wait!!” It was a small shout, but louder than he would have ever heard you speak before. His hand stopped, his smile shrunk only a bit, but now you noticed this kind of thing after staring at him for so many hours. But now you had to talk again, oh jeez, this was the worst plan of all time, wasn’t it? Now you WISH you had the confidence that other skeleton has.

“I’m, ya know, still waiting here....” Sans was looking in your direction, still with his hand raised towards the tip jar. “I AM a skeleton, so I’m patient...nothing gets under our skin.” He looked ready to laugh at his own joke. You just sighed in disdain and shook your head. It wasn’t worth it. Maybe you should have thrown in the towel awhile back.

“Nevermind.” You began to walk away, not even taking your share of tips for the day.

That’s when you ran into the other skeleton, and fell flat on your ass.


	2. The Great

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise next chapter will be longer, but this was kind of just a shorter segment  
> Comments and Kudos are deeply appreciated

“Oh no! Have, I, the Great Papyrus, failed to realize my own strength?!” Guess who’s name you learned. Though you strongly doubted the whole ‘Great’ part, but who knows. This Papyrus Monster was rather tall, at least a foot taller than the other skeleton ,and he always seemed to be wearing some ridiculous outfit, another contrast to Sans’ lack of outfit change. Since he’s a skeleton, you guessed that wasn’t too weird. They probably don’t sweat.

Rubbing at the sore spot as you rose, you could feel Sans’ eyes (or lack thereof) on you, and damn if it didn’t creep you out. Papyrus was still ranting about something or other, but you didn’t tune back in until he was already off talking about subjects you didn’t even fully understand.

“I was head of the royal guard after all, I should have seen this coming, the day where my strength and greatness was too much!” He emotionally spilled to you.

“Head of the royal guard?” You repeated back.

“Well, no. But I was almost accepted in the ranks!” Something about that felt un true. Although you had to admit, for being made of bones, he really knocked you down.

Sans approached from behind, hands shoved in his pockets as he eyed the discussion. That was when Papyrus finally snapped out of his speech and noticed the shorter one.

“Ah! Sans! You’re actually here for once!” The tall one exclaimed with a burst of excitement. “You didn’t pay last month’s electric bill!”

You stopped for a moment, and blinked slowly. Last MONTH’S? How long had they been without power?! Wait, they lived together? Maybe they were dating? Nah. Opposites don’t attract THAT much…..right?

“You’re confused, aren’t you?” Sans was looking right at you, expression almost mocking you. Asshole. He chuckled near silently. “We’re lovers.”

“Sans! I love you, too, brother!” Oh god what. No, seriously, what on earth? At this point you just had to believe Papyrus, because there was no way he wasn’t a sincere...guy? So they’re brothers, and they lived together. Now you were starting to piece things together.

“I’ll get to the bill tonight. See ya.” Sans winked and walked away, off in a totally different direction than you usually saw him leave. That skeleton was a mystery, alright. Somehow, you felt you understood him more, but also, not at all.

Papyrus was still stood in front of you, hands on his hip bones and sharing a rather similar smile to that of his brother’s, but much more…

Sincere.

“Ah, Human, you work with Sans, right?” The question was clearly aimed at you, seeing as there was never anyone else around, let alone humans. Still, it took you a long moment to answer. After all, was it really right to say you worked with him? He was working with you, in writing, but when it came to practice it was obvious he did none of the work and kept a share of tips regardless of his ‘effort’.

“I mean, yeah.” You shrugged, not sure how else to tell Papyrus.

“Out of all his jobs and you’re his only co-worker! I feel like we were destined to be friends. Though I’d understand if you say no.” How surprisingly humble of him. “It would be quite the struggle to be friends with someone as amazing as me, I’m always flagged down for autographs.” Ah. there we go. “And anything I do may just make you disheartened, oh I couldn’t bear to make you feel such a way!”

You’re about to reassure him that wouldn’t be an issue, when suddenly you back track. Exactly how many jobs did Sans have? And you’re the only person who actually worked with him?

“Where else does Sans work?” You inquired. Papyrus was taken aback by your topic switch, but quickly remained cool. Or, so he would have liked to think. He was somehow sweating, defying all logic.

“Where doesn’t he work would be the better question! The answer would be much longer and we could spend more time together!” He looked so proud of himself. “But to answer your question, he works in too many places to count on my fingers!”

“Wow, that’s a lot. You don’t know the exact number?” You crossed your arms and furrowed your brows in wonder.

“Eleven. Eleven jobs. Including this one with you.”

At least now you knew Papyrus had less than eleven fingers. Not like you could check, he was always wearing some kind of glove, but mostly he stuck to his oven mitts. Eccentric, you’re sure.

“Say! I just had the most brilliant idea! We should be friends!” As much as you wanted to point out he already said that, there was no way you could disappoint him like that. “We could have a sleepover and eat spaghetti and play with my figurine collection!!!”

You chuckled. Papyrus really was quite different from his brother, from what you could tell. Absolutely adorable, in that puppy dog kind of way. He was always bursting with energy every time you saw him, and he was downright kind, leaving money when he felt he may have been bothering you. How cruel would you have to be to turn him down? Very cruel.

“Yeah, yeah. We can...totally do all of that, sure.” It was a genuine answer, and the way Papyrus beamed at you, equally as genuine, well, it just filled you with some kind of determination to be a good friend to him. It was a weird, but nice feeling.

“Let’s exchange numbers!” The skeleton insisted, pulling out his cellphone. The two of you entered each other’s numbers and tucked away the device. Wait a second. Where on earth did he keep that?

After another long-winded speech by Papyrus, you two said your goodbyes and you were on your way back home. The plan you had crafted wasn’t exactly foolproof, it seemed, but you were definitely doing better than you thought you were going to be by this time. Through his brother, you began to understand more about Sans, so maybe you could cut him some slack. Still, he was taking your hard earned money, so there was plenty to be bitter about.

As you reached your door, your phone made a noise in your pocket. Papyrus had sent you a text!

**  
**“Want 2 hang 2morrow?”


	3. Guilty as Charged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually meant to get to more Papyrus but so much for that :c  
> Thanks again for the comments and kudos, I've been getting the greatest compliments and they mean a lot to me!

Once inside your apartment, you locked the door behind you and flicked on the front room light. It was always dark by the time you managed to get home, after taking the subway, that is. Thanks to the after work discussion, you actually almost missed your ride and that would have been a bad time. There were always shady people out after ten at night or so, and frankly, you didn’t want to even risk an encounter with any of the less-friendly monsters.

Kicking off your shoes, you headed for the small kitchen area and grabbed some leftovers from the fridge to heat up. That was dinner for pretty much every weeknight. While you waited for the microwave to be done, you opened back up your phone and quickly typed out a reply to Papyrus.

 

“I have work. Won’t be free until late and have some shopping to do. Sorry.”

 

You almost included a frowny face, but wondered if that was too much. The microwave beeped, alerting you that your food was heated. Probably. Cold spots were a 50-50 gamble. You took the food with you and sat down on your bed, like the lazy heathen you were. Seriously, who had time to just sit down at a table by themselves? Not you. Your phone sounded again.

“sounds great! lets go shopping!”

You nearly choked on the already luke-warm food in your mouth. Was he serious? Did he think you weren’t serious? That was what you got for not outright saying ‘no’. The food was set aside as you began to think of what to respond. After all, you didn’t really have any local friends, maybe it would be nice to actually shop with someone else. He WAS nice. However, niceness only went so far, and it wasn’t like you knew anything about him in all reality.

 

“If you’re sure. See you tomorrow.”

 

Welp. That happened. You were going to go shopping with some skeleton (a strangely sweaty one at that) that you didn’t even know the name of until then. What an odd turn of events from what you had suspected your plan to bring. Life was funny like that. You digressed, though. It was time to finish your food and get your butt to bed after you enjoyed some good ol fashioned youtube. What? Did you think you were going to say anime? You should know yourself better than that, anime is reserved for the weekend.

***

The next morning, you went through your usual routine, game face on once again. Okay seriously, you need to stop straining your face. It may get stuck like that.

As you got to work, it was the same old same old, with Sans at the stall. He never had his eyes open until you were walking up. Was he napping or something? Today, you didn’t really care about him, after all, you proved to yourself you could make him stay. What more could you ask for?

To your surprise, Sans didn’t leave right away. In fact, it had been nearly twenty minutes and he was still there, standing perfectly still and… was he staring at you? There was no way, that’d be far too creepy of him! Wait, why had you suddenly felt a pang of guilt? Weird. You ignored the almost deja vu moment and continued to do your work, serving a number of humans and monsters.

After a total of fifty minutes passed, you began to feel incredibly uneasy. He was still staring at you. Not directly, exactly, he was side eyeing you, which was arguably worse because how did he even have a pupil to side eye you with?! You were distracted and felt red in the face due to frustration with your co-worker. Nice cream hit the floor. You just made a monster kid cry.

This could not get any worse.

You insisted that it was your fault and issued out another free Nice Cream for the kid to enjoy. He was only sniffling now and enjoyed his frozen treat with small whimpers. To your left, Sans grinned widely. Asshole.

After ANOTHER fifty minutes, you were beyond uneasy and passed right into pissed off and confused. What was he doing?! Or rather...why was he doing nothing? He had more than enough opportunities to slip away to his other jobs or to take a nap or whatever it was skeleton’s did when they weren’t working at a Nice Cream stall! On a few occasions, you had even turned completely away from him, trying to give him a chance to escape, but to your dismay and utter shock, he was never moved from the spot!

You must have been visibly distraught, seeing as the customer in front of you looked concerned. Whether they were concerned for you or for their own safety (You were gripping that cone rather tightly) was up for debate. They dashed off without leaving a tip once they had secured their goods.

“Hey.” You were shocked to hear Sans’ voice. “You look a bit warm in the face there, pal. Are you maybe… running a femur?” He had the same proud look his brother liked to wear, except it felt mocking.

You wanted to explode. You wanted to collapse to the ground and just blend in with the concrete, or better yet, be absorbed into it. You wanted to scream.

You happened to do none of the above, because some of it was maybe impossible. How was it that just ONE skeleton could get under your skin so much? You slapped yourself mentally for that pun.

“Not great being stared at all day, huh?” There was that odd guilty feeling again. Sans narrowed his eyes at you, face fully turned in your direction. That grin never faltered. “Staring is rude after all.” Something about that made you shiver. Was he threatening you?

You swallowed hard and tried to find something to say to him, but somehow he always managed to make you speechless. Maybe that was some kind of monster magic? Was that actually a thing? Regardless, you stood there, unmoving, saying nothing.

“I think you get the point.” He looked away from you again, and this time, stared straight ahead. It was a relief not to have his eyes trained on you, but at the same time you felt like shit. It was obvious you upset him when you hadn’t really meant to. You turned your head away for a second, mustering up enough courage to open your mouth. You breathed in deep and turned back to him.

“Sans, I-” He was gone. You guessed he felt he made his point and had no reason to stick around any longer. He probably had better things to do.

The rest of the work day went by average, but you couldn’t help feel guilty for the way you’ve thought about and treated Sans. Sure, he was a jerk for taking money he didn’t earn, but that didn’t mean you had to sit there stewing in your frustration and scheming against him. You just needed to talk to him. He was probably pretty reasonable. Maybe. At least now you knew not everything was a joke to him, even if he never stopped grinning.

It was time to close up. You did what you always did and finished up your duties. It was almost sad to think you had been working there all summer and now that was coming to close in just a matter of days. The saddest part of all was that you were just getting to understand Sans.

Speak of the devil, Sans had just walked up, taking his portion of the tips, He didn’t even look at you. Instead, he counted the dollars and cents and glanced back at the jar, making sure the split was even. A few cents were plopped back in, and all the money he kept was shoved in his pocket.

“Sans…?” You started, gaining his attention. The look he gave you made you even more nervous. “I’m, uh… sorry about yesterday. I was just…” You trailed off, due to his unblinking gaze.

“Admiring the view?” He teased you, reaching into his jacket and returning a dollar bill to the jar. You had no more words, and your face felt warm again. For a split second, Sans almost looked inquisitive, but the maybe non existent glance was quickly replaced with his usual expression. “Have fun with Papyrus. He’s been excited to spend time with you. Please don’t disappoint him.” Those had been the most sincere words you had heard from him and as per usual, you had no idea how to respond.

So you nodded.

Sans walked away, in the usual direction this time. You didn’t even have the chance to properly apologize to him and he was already gone. Why did you feel like it was resolved? Or rather… he thought it was resolved.

You sighed, not sure what to make of any of it. Whether it mattered or not, you had other things to attend to, and one of those things was walking towards you with a shirt that read ‘cool guy’ on it. Oh boy.


	4. Adventure, Ho!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (shamelessly advertises self)  
> Hey, so I take commissions now! If you want me to write ya something, check out my profile for more details! I promise it doesn't cost much at all
> 
> Sorry there still isn't much happening, but I promise it'll get somewhere eventually
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, as well as for all your Comments and Kudos!

Papyrus was bursting with energy as he approached you. His outfit choice was...eccentric. Had you already used that word to describe him before? Maybe you should have read a dictionary sometime in your life.

“Human! Are you ready for our shopping adventure?” He rather loudly asked you. Still, it was endearing how much he seemed to enjoy even simple things in life. Were other monsters like that? You certainly hadn’t met any as bright and cheerful as him. The change of pace was definitely a breath of fresh air, especially after your awkward day with Sans.

You realized you were probably just staring him down in thought and he WAS looking shifty eyed in confusion. Great going. So, instead of making it more awkward, you just nodded casually and smiled. Papyrus seemed to approve. You became even more of a silent protagonist.

“Where are we traversing first?” Always with his exciting words.

“Uh, just some shopping. I have classes starting and I really need some supplies.” You responded cooly. Despite your calm nature, your answer seemed to only pump Papyrus up more.

“School?! I went to a school once! I was kicked out on the first day!” He made a face you couldn’t even describe.

“What’d you do to get kicked out?” You had to know.

He grumbled something under his breath and coughed dramatically. You rose an eyebrow at him. He began to sweat profusely.

“I may have, possibly, brought in a puzzle for show and tell. And made kids cry. Toriel was upset.” He was actually blushing somehow, rubbing at the back of his head shyly. You couldn’t help but wonder how a simple puzzle could make kids cry. And who was Toriel?

“You’re strange, Papyrus.” You chuckled at him, the skeleton grinning widely. “Let’s get going.” You started off, trying to make sure Papyrus was walking with you. He seemed nervous, but soon was beside you.

The two of you walked for awhile, Papyrus rambling on about a number of stories. Of how great he was and how he saved all of the monsters because he spared some human. He then went on to explain in great detail about all the puzzles he made to trap them. You began to understand how he made kids cry. Regardless, even with just walking and listening, you were enjoying yourself.

“And that’s why you should never donate spaghetti if it’s below freezing out!” He concluded just in time. The first stop was just up ahead and you were feeling very confused anyway.

It was a small corner store, one that sold a few different essentials. You entered and immediately moved to the back where they were stocking up on jackets. Your current one had lasted you a few years, but after the fifth hole in it, you decided it may have been time for a replacement. Papyrus watched in wonderment as you shifted through the different options.

“Hm...none of these garments accentuate how awesome you are…” He seemed perplexed, with his finger and thumb caressing his chin. You couldn’t help but laugh.

“Yeah, I guess none of them say ‘cool’ quite like your shirt does.” You commented, hoping some light teasing was okay with him.

“NYEH HEH HEH.” You took that as a yes. “Don’t fret! I, The Great Papyrus, will assist in your search for more fitting clothing!” He posed for you, a single leg propped up on a display stand and both his hands to his hips. The amount of energy he put into everything was astounding and in a way filled you with your own brand of determination.

“I appreciate it, but I’m on a budget.” You explained before he went too far. “I just need something simple and cheap.” You saw him deflate a little bit, but at least he hadn’t looked too disappointed.

“Ah, yes. I see. Another time.” He was blushing again.

You reached for a plain zip-up jacket in your favorite color and glanced at the price tag. It was twenty dollars, but you couldn’t see yourself buying cheaper when you needed this to last. Still, that twenty dollars could have bought a pizza…

“A good choice! It’s the color of victory!!!” Papyrus shouted. The other three people whom were scattered around the store eyed the two of you. As a side note, you felt like he would have said that to any color you chose.

“Uhh...anyway. Tell me about something.” It was your attempt at getting him to ramble instead of shouting at what you were doing. He was much quieter that way. Then, however, you had a brilliant idea. “Why does Sans work so many jobs?”

Papyrus stopped for a moment and looked deep in thought. Did he not even know the answer? They were brother’s, but maybe they weren’t that close? No. Sans even commented about you and Papyrus hanging out, so they must have talked. Then again, it could have been one sided.

“I don’t really know. He started accumulating jobs almost immediately after we came to the surface. How people hire him I’ll never know!” The skeleton rolled his eye-sockets… or something.

As you reached for some new toothpaste, you thought to yourself. Was living really that expensive for them? It couldn’t be, they were Monsters. Did Papyrus work at all? Or was it just his brother? They had discussed the matter of paying the electrical bill and it sounded like Sans was in charge of all that. It crossed your mind to ask further, but you realized Papyrus was already talking about how cold it was in some place called Snowdin.

Once you grabbed everything you need from the store, you checked out at the counter and listened to Papyrus some more. He sure had a lot to talk about. You wondered how old he was.

The two of you stopped at a couple more stores to get school supplies and some food. Papyrus had a comment for just about everything and most of them made you laugh, or at the very least, smile.

The trip came to an end, though, and you stood at your apartment door with Papyrus. You told him you could carry everything just fine, but he insisted on assisting you.

“Hey, thanks for keeping me company today. I had fun. We should go out again sometime, before I get too busy with school.” For a split second it looked like Papyrus was shocked, but he regained his own sense of composure.

“Y-Yeah! Nyeh… heh… heh.” Why was he suddenly so shy? “See you around, Human!” With that, he sauntered off down the hall and out of sight. You already missed him.

You set the bags on the ground and reached in your pocket for the key. Just as you unlocked the door, however, something scared the shit out of you.

“Hey.” Your keys went flying out of your hand and you immediately whipped around to see Sans, just standing there. You were scared speechless. “Sorry, did I scare you? My bad.” He certainly didn’t look sorry. In fact, he was only grinning more at you.

“Thanks for making my brother happy. I don’t get to spend much time with him anymore. Work and all. Gotta make a living.” He shrugged at you. “He seems to care about you. So… don’t disappoint him.” Again, he sounded like he was trying to threaten you, but you were never sure.

He stuck out his hand and after a pause out of shock, you reached forward and took his hand in yours. What you thought was going to be a touching moment turned out to be entirely different. A farting sound emitted from the handshake and you knew what the cause was.

“Whoops, how’d THAT get there?” Sans held up the Whoopie cushion in pure delight of his own prank. “Anyway. See ya, pal.” He winked and wandered off, leaving you confused and slightly disturbed in the hallway of your apartment building.

What the heck?


	5. Reflection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why must I perpetually post short chapters that don't accomplish much  
> (Shout out to double meaning chapter titles tho)
> 
> Thanks for all the Comments and Kudos, you all are awesome

It was Thursday now, wasn’t it? You would have checked a calendar, but who actually used those anymore? Your hand fumbled along your nightstand in search of your phone. In the process, you managed to knock over a bottle of water and a pen, but eventually you found the device and saw you had missed a text in the middle of the night.

“:-)”

It was from Papyrus, and the simplicity of it made you chuckle. Then, of course, you remembered yesterday. The shopping trip with Papyrus and, afterwards, the vague threatening of Sans, his brother. A shiver went down your spine as you sat up and realized your ‘co-worker’ knew where you lived. Was he following the two of you the entire time, or did he just have skeleton senses?! You wracked your brain for answers, but it felt like all you did was ask yourself questions you clearly had no answer for.

Today was Thursday. You knew that much and you decided to acknowledge the simple wins. Tomorrow was your last day of work, and to your surprise, you weren’t happy.

The feeling nagged at you as you got ready and adorned the usual uniform. What exactly was it that held you back from a sense of relief? Sans was frightening! Admittedly funny from time to time, and he really did care for his brother, which was rather sweet. Oh! And he one time paid for a nice cream out of his own pocket when you cried on your third day of work. Where were you going with all of this? Did you somehow manage to not find Sans a total asshole?

Without even thinking about it, you made it to work and saw Sans there, as usual, just relaxing. Except this time, he noticed you immediately and smiled. Odd.

“Mornin’.” He greeted in a sincere tone. This was definitely odd. Was this all because you spent time with his brother yesterday? Was Papyrus talking about you or something?

You meekly passed by, simply taking up your own position behind the stall and flipping the sign to open. That was when you felt a familiar sensation. He was staring at you again. There was silence for a short while, before Sans looked away and his expression softened considerably.

“When we were underground, Papyrus liked to make puzzles.” You were taken aback by the sudden opening to a story. “He still does. It was really cool of him. Sometimes he would try to get ME to make puzzles, too, but I figured…” Sans shifted slightly, looking up to you once more. “Shouldn’t I let him be happy?”

You had no inkling of an idea how to respond. Why was he doing this all of a sudden? Talking to you about Papyrus, opening up. He looked vulnerable.

“Papyrus tries real hard.” You waited for quite some time for Sans to continue, but to your subtle disappointment, he stopped there. None of it made sense to you, really, but like before, you had to take the small victories. He seemed to be warming up to you, despite his lack of blood. Or a heart. Or really anything.

You felt like there was maybe something to say, but at the same time, Sans’ seemed to feel resolved. Then your brain did something odd, it auto-filled what he would have said had he kept talking. He was implying something, trying to explain himself. Papyrus tried really hard. Sans wanted to as well.

Something stirred inside you. Pity. Sympathy. Determination to understand him better. To understand BOTH of them better. By the time that you glanced at Sans again, he was gone.

The end of the day drew near without much incident, aside from asshole who tried to make the most complicated tower of Nice Cream ever. Twenty ancient flavors later, it all fell on him, and you both laughed, so it was fine. Still, in the back of your head, you thought of Sans and Papyrus. Three months you have worked there and you hadn’t even thought about giving them a chance, about putting aside your bitterness and stress of impending school long enough to TALK to them.

But you weren’t always good at talking, that was the excuse. That was why you liked Papyrus, or rather, one of the many reasons. He always had something to talk about and loved to talk about himself, but he took his chances to remind you how cool he thought you were despite hardly talking to him at all. He saw something in you that you refused to believe most the time.

You weren’t the best at hiding your feelings, either. Perhaps, just maybe, that was why you envied Sans. He never seemed upset or angry or tired, he was just content; caught up in the moment and in no rush even when there was something to rush for. He was himself and he was okay with that.

Both of them were. They were so comfortable with who they were and they seemingly tried to make you feel the same, whether subconsciously or actively.

While stuck deep in thought, Sans appeared as if from nowhere, back to collect his usual cash from the tip jar. You barely registered his arrival, but managed to catch his glance in your direction. Just as quickly as you saw it, however, he was looking away.

“Hope you didn’t work yourself to the bone today. See ya, pal.” He lifted a single, boney hand out from his jacket and held it up to say goodbye. Everything about him was cool and collected, it was a wonder that he cared at all about the effort he put into living. It was like he gave up caring. But he had Papyrus. That was all he needed, wasn’t it?

You nervously chewed at your lip and watched as he began to walk away. He must have gotten used to your silent-protagonist vibe. You had to tell him.

“Tomorrow is my last day.”

Sans stopped in his tracks.


	6. Friendly Neighborhood Skeletons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To make up for the lack of updating and returning with only a short chapter, here's a surprise second chapter before I go to bed
> 
> Here's where the story starts to pick up, I hope
> 
> Thanks everyone for the support, your kudos and comments make my day! Feel free to suggest more plot ideas or tell me where you'd like to see this go.

It was Friday morning. Your last day of work was in an hour and part of you ached for it to be the start of the week. It wasn’t until the previous night that you let Sans know, and the way that he stopped so suddenly was eerie. It wasn’t even a few seconds later that he just continued on without so much as a snarky remark. You wondered what it was all about. The time for wondering wasn’t scheduled in, however, you already needed to get up and get moving.

The air was brisk as you exited the apartment building, you wished you brought a scarf. Autumn had arrived.

Speaking of arriving, you found as you showed up to the Nice Cream stall that Sans wasn’t there. Your stomach twisted up in knots. This was by all definitions: a first. You instinctively checked your phone for the time, noting that you were, in fact, not early. Where the hell was he?

Before you flipped the sign to open, you decided to text the only person you thought could help.

“Hey Papyrus, do you know where Sans is?”

You didn’t want to sound panicked, you weren’t even sure why you WERE panicked, but you hoped his brother could shed some light on the situation. On the upside, it was colder that day, meaning far less customers than usual. After a moment, your phone made a noise.

“he’s not eating my cooking if that’s what u were wondering”

You couldn’t help but sigh. That wasn’t exactly what you were looking for as an answer, but at least Papyrus was still his usual self, so Sans couldn’t have just disappeared. He had his brother to look after.

“Shame on him. Thanks anyway, Papyrus.”

You would have sent a smiley, but it seemed out of character. Besides, Sans was probably just tired of you, there was definitely, most positively no reason to be worried.

But you were. You were really worried. There was a part of you that couldn’t help it, despite how much of an asshole you initially thought he was.

It wasn’t even ten minutes later when you suddenly saw a familiar face and found yourself very confused.

“Papyrus?” You asked as the taller of the skeletons approached you and the mostly ignored stall. Maybe he was also looking for Sans?

“Human!” He called towards you, stopping just before running into the front of the stall. “Are you alright? I, the Great Papyrus, sensed that something was wrong!” So they DO have Skeleton senses! That wasn’t important, though, you shouldn’t get caught up in comedic thoughts!

“Uh…” You had no idea how to respond. When did you EVER have an idea of how to respond? Let alone respond to something Papyrus said to you....

You took a moment to gather yourself and swallowed hard.

“I’m, uh… just surprised that you’re here.” You admitted with a half-hearted shrug. Papyrus looked at you with an intense expression. Or, rather, he was beaming at you, extremely content with himself.

“I have dated before, you know! Nothing can stop me this time from being the best at dating, the master! I shall be… nothing short of perfect! Which isn’t difficult for me, of course, however. Maybe. I am a bit stiff in the bones. However! A rule of dating is to always comfort the other person! I brought comfort food!” He somehow pulled out a whole chicken from behind his cape. It was alive.

Where did you even begin? With the chicken? With the dating? With the fact that he may have said a pun and not felt bitter about it? This was all too much at once. Oh, the chicken left.

“Curses! The comfort got away!” Papyrus shook his fist angrily at the runaway poultry. Your head began to hurt.

“Why… what… huh?” For the first time (shockingly enough) you were absolutely flabbergasted. You rarely used that word.

“Ah, I see I have successfully flustered you! That’s a good thing!” He paused a moment, taking out some book on dating. “... I think.” He flipped through the pages in search of his answer. But really, you were the one desperately in need of some kind of explanation.

“Papyrus, wait. Slow down. Do you think we’re dating?” It came out harsher than you intended. Good going, jerk, you didn’t want to hurt him and yet.

Papyrus stared at you for a bit, trying to connect that dots, so to speak, just as you were doing not too long ago. This time, however, you wondered how one sentence could render him speechless.

“Are we not dating?” He didn’t look upset or angry, to your relief, just extremely confused. You had something in common. Aside from the fact that you had a skeleton inside you. Okay. Creepy. You decided to never have that thought cross your mind again.

“I mean… no? Yes?” Now you managed to confuse yourself. “We were just hanging out… as friends.” You tried to lay down some emphasis on that last word.

“Oh, I see! Friend zoned again!” Okayyy then. Papyrus looked beyond ecstatic, even having his cape flow in the wind. “I understand, human! The pressure is all too much for you to handle!” What pressure? “I am rather popular, with my own following on social media… who knows what the fans would say if I became exclusive! They would have tormented you! I… I couldn’t allow that!” Why was it that everything he said could become a Shakespeare drama? And why were you always emotionally invested?!

You could have tried and corrected him, but you would have had to have been heartless.

“Uh, yeah. I’m glad you understand, Papyrus.” You responded, playing along. “Anyway, I don’t need comforting anymore. You did a great job cheering me up, thanks.” This was pretty close to the most words you had ever said to him at one time. -20 silent protagonist points.

“Anytime! It’s great to have such a cool and selfless friend like me! And like you, too!” He always managed to slip in a compliment for you, too. It was actually really sweet. After you exchanged goodbyes, Papyrus was heading off as quickly as he had arrived. You really didn’t want to worry him about Sans.

Hours ticked by and still no sign of Sans anywhere, it was as if he was flat out avoiding you. Maybe he was. You weren’t exactly a charmer, not with your day of staring early on, or your attitude. Or anything, really. You were a good listener, but Sans didn’t need that.

Closing time snuck up quickly, especially when you considered how much of your day Papyrus actually took up. And as you flipped the sign for the last time, you felt a particularly cold breeze blow in your direction.

“You look cold. You’re shaking in your bones.” Sans teased you. Instantly, you felt a smile spread across your face and you spun around to face the skeleton. “I’d offer ya my jacket, but it has all of my ketchup reserves.”

“Why…” You weren’t good with words when he stared you down, and this was no exception.

“Why was I gone all day? Didn’t want to bother you.” His answer was so simple and he spoke in a way that always made you feel silly for asking; like you should always know the answer.  “Say… why don’t you come over sometime? Papyrus would love that. He has a lot of puzzles for you to try.” He said Papyrus, but you secretly hoped he meant he would love that, too.

You nodded your head with a soft smile.

“Cool. See ya around.” Sans left without even going for the tip jar. You, in turn, took all the cash and headed home to collapse into your bed. Maybe you and Sans had a chance, yet.

You decided to visit them that weekend, if you could.


	7. The Skeleton Family *snap snap*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay first off, I just wanted to mention I was so excited to find out my current favorite Undertale blog mentioned this story on their blog and apparently really enjoy it? So thank you so much nfswbutts (go check them out if you don't mind nsfw content) you really made my day! And also made this story go way up in popularity, thank you!  
> So as thanks, I tried making this chapter a bit longer haha
> 
> Thank you everyone who reads, comments, leaves kudos, etc.. I'll keep writing it as long as you're around!

Saturday was an uneventful time, just a shift in routines that made up your life. The fact that you were no longer going to be seeing Papyrus and Sans multiple times a week took some adjustment, and by that you meant you weren’t adjusted. Weren’t going to be any time soon. Now, you didn’t live a BORING life, it just wasn’t quite as interesting as the last three months of summer had been. Never in all your years had you thought two skeletons would change your views so much. Sans peeved you off most the time and Papyrus was admittedly a little draining to spend time with. Together, the two of them were a concoction of ‘I don’t get paid enough to deal with this’ and ‘hello monday morning’, but you still managed to almost… crave them. Not like in a weird way, just that you wanted them a part of your life.

They were a part of your life now, you had to remind yourself. Papyrus enjoyed sending you smiley faces in the middle of the night it seemed and Sans obviously extended an offer to visit. Speaking of which, you needed to ask Papyrus about that, get an address and everything. You DID want to visit them once before school. The first couple weeks always managed to take up every last bit of time you had, which was why you had to quit your job in the first place.

You sighed heavily. Having extra income was nice and you were going to miss that the most, probably. Though, that may have been a lie. Maybe. Not like you’d admit it out loud.

The entire day was spent organizing a number of objects and schedules that you had to be adjusted to almost immediately. The margin for error tended to be small, considering your living conditions and the budgeting you always had to figure out. Next month, you would start up the job search again, but for something with significantly less hours. Who thought it’d be a good idea to have a 9-5 nice cream stall on the corner of a street?

Regardless, school was a topic that constantly circled around in your head. Just sitting on your floor with a bowl of cereal and looking at your printed up schedule made you anxious. You needed some wind down time.

“Hey Papyrus are you and Sans free tomorrow?”

It took some courage to send that text, especially after you maybe could have possibly broken up with Papyrus? Honestly, had he asked you on an official date, you may have said yes. Again, you’d never admit that out loud. Your face warmed up at the idea of Papyrus attempting to be romantic, but you figured he would never be any kind of sauve. He was more the over the top and still gentleman-like kinda guy. Skeleton. Skeleton-guy. Now Sans on the other hand---

You were glad your phone alerted you of a text and interrupted the line of thought. With another heavy sigh, you reached for your phone, which had been tossed off to the side.

“sans says we are!”

You couldn’t help but chuckle at every part of that statement. A mini scenario played out in your head as you imagined Papyrus asking for permission much like an elementary school child. Now that you entertained that thought, you couldn’t help but wonder something else. Which of the brother’s was older? Sans seemed to be in charge of a lot, so you’d want to assume him, but… at the same time, Papyrus is taller and acts, in a way, more responsible. Kinda? Okay, maybe that last note was up for debate, but that didn’t resolve the fact that it was impossible to tell. They certainly never mentioned who was older, just referred to each other as brothers.

This was not the time to be daydreaming about small, irrelevant details like that! You hurriedly responded to Papyrus and within the next few texts, you managed to get their address and a time for meeting up. You squinted at the address you wrote down. That seemed wrong. There was no way you messed up writing it, however, so did they seriously live in that high end of a neighborhood? Not that it was anything fancy, but that was a family neighborhood, with larger two-story houses and backyards. You felt jealousy.

You were just sighing left and right that day. At least you lived alone, so no one could ask you why you were investing so much time in a couple of skeletons. Damn it, why was your face warm again?

The rest of the day went without much of a hitch (though it could have been argued your entire life was a hitch) and you ended it off with staring out the only window in your place. September was right around the corner, clouds rolled in every so often bringing a cool breeze. Outside, it was night time, dark and frigid. Tomorrow would be nice, however. There was no denying the excitement you felt knowing that you’d get the chance to peek at Papyrus and Sans’ living style. They had to be rather eccentric. (Someone should start a counter on how often you used that word to describe the brothers.)

***

You couldn’t recall how you fell asleep, but it certainly wasn’t planned, because as you woke up, you had found your face full of keyboard indents. Great, you fell asleep watching youtube. Typed up in the search bar was a longgg list of garbled words and numbers. You sat up with a groan and turned off the nearly dead laptop. It was early, the sun barely up outside your one window.

After taking care of a number of household chores, you glanced at the time and smiled brightly. In a matter of hours, you were going to be at Papyrus and Sans’ home, eating lunch with them, The former of the skeletons had promised some sort of special lunch.

You removed your clothing, seeing as you had fallen asleep in it and became a sweaty mess in the middle of the night, then hopped in the shower to freshen up. Once that was all done, you put on another outfit and grabbed your things, just the usual stuff you carried everywhere with you. As you left the apartment, however, you stopped very suddenly. You forgot to bring the instructions. With a roll of the eyes, you returned and quickly snatched up the piece of paper.

It was noon and directly in front of you was what appeared to be the home of the skeleton brothers. You triple checked the address written down before you took your first steps up to the door. It was a rather average looking home. For a family. You know, the kind that a husband and wife with their two kids and a dog would live in on those commercials for life insurance. Not the home you typically imagined two monsters would live in. You swallowed hard, trying not to judge so much as you rung the doorbell.

In a matter of minutes, Papyrus opened the door wearing what appeared to be a relatively normal outfit. Aside from the incredibly lacey apron, but hey, it suited him.

“Welcome human! Come on in!” He greeted you cheerfully. Without much hesitation, you stepped on inside, taking your time to really look around.

The home was large, just as you expected, and to your left you saw the staircase that led up to the second floor. You could only assume their rooms were up that way, just based on typical home layout. Well… nothing about them was typical, so who knew, really. Directly across from you was the entrance to what looked like a kitchen, with a cute wood table in the center of it. Much better than the patio furniture you pretended was a dining room set. The woes of college life.

The room you currently stood in, surveying, appeared to be the living room, seeing as it had a large television (with a couple game systems below it) and an equally large couch, The couch looked comfy, but also somehow bloated. You wouldn’t put it past Sans to hide snacks there, he just seemed like the type.

There was a long table to your immediate right with a rock in a glass fish tank and even further down, a pile of books that had no order to them.

Was this how they lived back in the underground?

Upon closer inspection, you noted there were doritos and sprinkles littering the bottom of the fish tank. Wonderful. Now you just HAD to see the upstairs, it really felt like you were learning so much about them. Something else crossed your mind, however.

“Where’s Sans?” You asked, shoving your hands in your jacket pockets.

“He said he’d be back in time for lunch. He’s probably off somewhere napping.” Papyrus looked shifty eyed and a tad annoyed. “Why don’t you look around? I’m not quite done with my masterpiece yet!”

You nodded, excited for an actual invitation to snoop. A once in a lifetime opportunity, truly. First thing you looked at closer was the pile of books just past the fish tank. There was a number of joke books and science fiction novels. It was obvious that Sans studied up. Comedy was truly a passion, It was the science fiction that threw you off, however. Then again, you could vividly imagine Papyrus wanting to be an astronaut or something. Adorable and charming.

Among the scattered books, you noticed something else. A photo album, maybe? You reached forward and removed it from the mess. It was definitely what you thought it was and you knew you just had to see what was inside. Flipping through the pages, you felt intense disappointment,

It was just… snow. Lots and lots of pictures of snow. How strange.

You were just about to toss it away again, until there was something different. On the last page was a group photo with a bunch of monsters you really had never seen, and a lone human child. Something about the photo… it filled you with warmth. Felt rude to ask about, however, so you simply set it back down. Now it was time to go explore the upstairs. Papyrus was busy in the kitchen after all, although you couldn’t smell what he was ‘crafting’.

You made your way up the wooden steps, looking to your right with deep interest. There were three doors, only the one in the center opened. It led to the bathroom which was… scarce. Clearly Skeletons didn’t need one as much as humans. The door closest to you was covered up in signs and tape, all reading off as very child-like. Papyrus’ room for sure. The door at the end of the hall, however, drew you in. From underneath it, a number of colorful lights glowed and your curiosity got the best of you.

With another swallow of nervousness, you approached the wood door and reached for the handle. As you turned it, you felt disappointed. The door was locked.

“Nosey, are we?” For the umpteenth time, Sans managed to sneak up behind you and scare you witless. You whirled around and found him not even two feet away.


	8. Master Chef

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm one of those people who just has to respond to everyone's comments I am so sorry  
> I just appreciate all the love and support for this story so much <3
> 
> Also wow, how many chapters can I keep the Reader in this dang house?

Had you said not even two feet away? You meant, you were practically touching toes. How in the hell did he even get that close without your noticing? You were more tense than you had ever been around him before. Sans’ smile faltered only slightly as he noticed your uneasiness.

“Wow… you’re really jumpy. Hey, buddy, calm down. I wouldn’t hurt you.” He chuckled lightly, something you weren’t used to hearing. “Papyrus has a habit of letting people look around. So… I just keep the door locked.” He shrugged. “Didn’t mean to scare you so much.”

You suddenly remembered why you thought he was such an asshole, but regardless, it was kind of hard to move. There was something about the way he stared at you, unblinking, that set you on edge constantly. Like, you were supposed to expect him to do something… like he was always capable.

“If you’re still curious about my room…” Sans was talking again, and you drew your focus back to him. “Don’t be.” He winked. You… had no idea what to make of any of that. “Papyrus will be done soon. I’ll be down stairs if you need something. Later.” With that, he was gone, leaving you dumbfounded. Why was every interaction with him just the same? He spoke, you listened, but at the end you always had to shiver and wonder if he was threatening you.

After a moment of cooling down, you decided it may have been best to stay far away from Sans’ room if you could. Instead, you turned away from it and glanced at the other side of the hall, where a wall of windows was. The outside view was their backyard, a huge one with a swimming pool and patio equipped with the means of a full-on barbecue. Did all of the money Sans made go towards this? There was no doubt in your mind that skeleton was a bit shady.

The pool was covered, you noted. Fall was just about there, so you assumed it wouldn’t be used for quite some time. Underneath the tarp, they probably had it drained for the season.

There wasn’t terribly much else on that floor, at least of the things you could see. As much as you would have enjoyed a peek at Papyrus’ room, you felt uneasy knowing either of them could sneak up behind you in a moments notice. Except… did Papyrus have that same knack for stealth as Sans? It didn’t seem like it, especially with just how loud and boisterous he was.

Across from the bathroom was a lone picture frame, inside, a drawing of a giant cartoon bone. Eccentric. Otherwise, the walls were scarce of any decoration. That was when your eyes fell on a series of red and blue sticky notes beside Papyrus’ door. How hadn’t you noticed them before? You inspected closer and began to read them.

SANS THERE ARE LEFTOVERS IN THE FRIDGE

ok.

WHY ARE THERE STILL LEFTOVERS IN THE FRIDGE?

didnt eat them.

TAKE CARE OF THEM

ok.

SANS WHY ARE THE LEFTOVERS IN THE TRASH

i took care of them.

WHY DIDN’T YOU EAT THEM?

they were in the trash.

You chuckled at the back and forth nature of their banter. Sans seemed like a real bother sometimes, but you also had to keep in mind that he seemed to do everything around the place. Except cook or eat, apparently.

That appeared to be everything of interest, so you took your leave and went back down the stairs. You could hear Sans and Papyrus in the kitchen.

“Sans, get your feet off the counter. Who knows where your slippers have been?”

“I know.”

“Oh. In that case.”

You weren’t quite ready to join them, there was still some of the house to explore, and Papyrus didn’t seem finished with lunch. You were in the living room again, the front door appeared to be left unlocked. Sans, probably. Inside the fish tank, sprinkles of shredded cheese was added to the mix of ‘rock food’, but otherwise, the room hadn’t changed at all. You suddenly remembered there was another door in the kitchen, but obviously you wouldn’t be able to get through there without Papyrus and Sans noticing you. Then again, Papyrus gave you free roam of the home, so…

Nah, it was still weird. This wasn’t like a videogame where you could just go wherever and talk to them when you were ready to advance the plot. That’d be strange.

You entered the kitchen, Sans’ eyes immediately falling on you. The intensity of his stare caused you to instinctively swallow. Papyrus turned around and noticed you now, lightening up the tension within seconds.

“Ah! Human! Are you finished looking around and acquainting yourself with the home?” That felt very plot-advancing. You nodded in response, taking a seat at the quaint wooden table. You noted that Sans was sitting up on the counter on the other side of the room, using a bag of flour as a pillow while lying back. So he was very into naps, just as Papyrus always hinted at. Still, his eyes were open and he was watching you for quite some time before looking away again.

“My masterpiece is finished!” Papyrus did a twirling motion, holding up a sealed away dish and presenting it in front of you. He then quickly repeated the motion, setting a second down on the table, and the third directly on top of Sans’ stomach. The shorter skeleton didn’t even flinch. You hesitated on removing the covering, until Papyrus was seated at the table and was staring you down eagerly.

With careful movements, you revealed the super secret special lunch. Spaghetti. At least it was a classic beloved by most, so how bad could it be? When you had looked up again, you noted Sans’ sudden change of location, he was now at the table, twirling the pasta on his fork. Damn that skeleton.

You, too, began to twirl up the noodles, lifting the oddly scentless food into your mouth where you made quite the discovery. The taste was horrendous, but you knew you couldn’t tell Papyrus, no way. It wasn’t unbearable by any means, just… really gross. So you managed to chew and swallow to Papyrus’ delight. To your left, Sans was eating… somehow? You never saw his mouth open, and yet noodles were definitely hanging from it. He made no comment. You made no comment, Everything was awkward, but Papyrus was happy.

“Papyrus, have you ever considered--” You gagged a little in the midst of the sentence. “Considered culinary class?” That was the best you could do to be subtle.

“Did I not already tell you about me and school?” He pointed out. He was right, he definitely did tell you about how that went down.

“Culinary classes are different, they’re like school, but… no show and tell, just… cook and eat.” You explained as you just then noticed Sans’ plate was empty and a bead of sweat had formed on his forehead. “Uh… anyway, it’s just somewhere that you could… hone your skills.” Solid save. 10/10. Would lie again.

“Hmm… now that you mention it, there is only one thing I am masterful at making. I should broaden my horizons!” Papyrus beamed at nothing in particular, just ecstatic with himself for the time being.

You continued to force down the spaghetti, much like you assumed Sans had done, and after fifteen minutes of pain, you succeeded. However, it didn’t sit right in your stomach.

“I just had a genius idea!” Papyrus shouted all of a sudden. The boom of his voice startled you and you accidentally dropped your fork. “Let us watch a movie!!!” As much fun as that sounded you knew you couldn’t spend too much time there. And selecting the movie would bound to be an hour long activity in of itself.

“Maybe next time. Why don’t we just talk?” The suggestion was taken well by Papyrus, but Sans was unreadable. It was almost as if he didn’t care whether you were there or not…

“So! Human! Did you enjoy taking a tour of the home?” That was an odd way of putting it, considering tour implied someone showed you around. You told him it was nice getting to see their lives.

“Maybe if we were dating, I would have given you all of the details of the building! That’s… that’s how that works, right?” Something told you Papyrus didn’t date much. Instead of lingering on that (Sans was staring you down again) you decided to switch conversation topics.

“Is this much different than how you lived before?”

“Before what?” Papyrus prompted further.

“Before… when you guys were, uh… underground.”

Sans’ gaze shifted away from you, but when you glanced at him, something seemed… off. Like, he wasn’t comfortable.

**  
Like you brought up a bad time.**


	9. The Other Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am the master of short, but hopefully meaningful chapters  
> ... I hope.
> 
> But hey, three chapters of just being in their home, nice

The tension was immediate and suffocating. You had no idea the underground was such a touchy subject, but at the same time, Papyrus wasn’t phased by your question, it was just Sans. The way he had looked away from you was unsettling and you could only sit there stewing in your own stupidity. Why had you even opened your mouth?

After what felt like an eternity, Sans got up from the table, hands still shoved in his pockets, and left without a word. Desperate for guidance, you looked to Papyrus, who seemed to share your uneasiness, but to a lesser extent. The two of you made eye contact, and his face sunk.

“Sorry, human… my brother doesn’t like to discuss our old home.” He briefly explained. That wasn’t enough of an answer for you, however, you were determined to understand.

“Why is that?” You pushed further, eyebrows furrowed. The skeleton began sweating again, shoveling his spaghetti into his mouth as he pretended to speak. Noodles went everywhere. “Papyrus.” Your voice was stern.

“I see that I have no other option… I shall tell you all I know.” There was more silence. Lots of silence. After a full minute, you were getting frustrated. “What?” He asked once he noticed your expression was different. “I know nothing. That’s the point.” Of course he didn’t know. Things were never THAT easy when it came to the brothers.

“Oh…” Needless to say, you were disappointed, but it was probably very rude of you to interrogate Papyrus like that.

“Sans refuses to talk to me about Snowdin or anything to do with the underground.” Then that photo album must have been put together by Papyrus. No wonder it was shoved beneath a massive pile of books; Sans didn’t want to see it. “But don’t let it get you down so much, he’s just a weirdo.”

That was easier said than done, in all honesty. There was so much to Sans that you felt this perpetual need to dig deeper, to ask questions and get answers.

To help.

Sans didn’t need your help, you had to remind yourself. Or rather, you couldn’t have any idea if he DID need help, it was never your place to say. Something about him made you want to do something, anything really. Papyrus was mostly correct, however; there was no need to be getting so distraught about it.

Speaking of Papyrus, the skeleton was cleaning up the dishes and the counter where Sans was lying down, humming a quiet tune. It was nice just listening, having the sensation of another person being around. There was comfort in the way he acted towards you, and now you’ve seen his more serious side, which you had no idea existed. The mysteries really never ended. It seemed Papyrus was caught up in his own world, however, so you took this as another snooping opportunity.

To your right, in the opposite direction of the living room, was the other door you had yet to go through. Standing up, you went right for it. (After pushing in your chair of course, you were a good guest.) To your surprise, the door wasn’t locked, but Papyrus did glance your way.

“Ah, that’s the garage. Where we keep our garbage. And other such essentials. Feel free to visit it any time!” You nodded in response and entered into the garage.

This was already the most interesting room you had seen. It was large and very square, with several items having cloth hung over them and counters full of complicated looking papers, books, and tools. To your right was an expensive looking car, all red and shiny, with a small busted-looking motorcycle sat next to it. Damn these rich monsters. What really grabbed your attention was the counter directly across from you. A light had been left on and the breeze coming from outside cause the lamp to slowly swing back and forth. Had someone been there recently?

You approached the area, eyes scanning over the papers and books. It all looked like some hard-core science, with letters as variables you had never seen and numbers that had decimals up to nine places. Who was writing all of this? There was no way Papyrus was up to this kind of stuff… maybe---

You jumped a foot off the ground when a loud crashing sound was made in the kitchen. After rubbing at your head, which had collided with the lamp, you turned to look. But nobody was there… for once.

That didn’t mean you were relaxed, however, in fact, you were only more unsettled by the situation. While you had expected answers, you were once again left with even more questions. You took one more quick glance at the writings before moving on to something else. There was a map hung up on the wall behind the parked vehicles, just your usual city map, except in red marker, someone had drawn an arrow pointing west, out towards the mountains. What was out there? Who were you kidding… you knew exactly what was out there.

There wasn’t much else to look around at, except for whatever was underneath those tarps, but you couldn’t bring yourself to peek. Instead, you headed back to the kitchen, where no one was seen. Everything was spotless, all organized and the dishwasher hummed softly as it cleaned. Papyrus was definitely a clean freak about his kitchen, how cute. You exited to the living room, where you found Papyrus staring at the photo album.

“Hey, maybe I should head out.” Your voice startled Papyrus, who shouted a very loud ‘nyeh’ and dropped the book of photos. Oops.

“Human! Have you been taking stealth lessons? Second questions: Where can I receive stealth lessons?” Papyrus was always full of joy. The two of you chatted very briefly, until you once again had to express your need to return home. It wasn’t actually that you HAD to leave, you just felt awkward about upsetting Sans, especially when he was the one who invited you over. So you said your goodbye, exiting the home and walking down the steps away from it. That was when you noticed Sans, leaning against the tree out front. You looked at him from out the corner of your eye and stopped moving.

He wasn’t looking at you, but you knew by now that he was always aware of everything. As you expected, his expression almost looked… well it DID look off. Somehow he managed to express a sort of pain without the ability to frown.

After a moment, you turned your face towards him, hoping he’d start talking.

“I was wrong to think… that things could just be simple.” His entire presence was causing you to form goosebumps. “I learned that a long time ago, pal. Fate has a bone to pick with me, and I just accept it. But you could never know how that feels.” Sans opened his eyes and stared right at you. “You can never understand.”

You blinked and suddenly he wasn’t there.

  
In the distance, the wind began to howl.


	10. A Week Went By

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyy 10 chapters! The big one-oh  
> You know what that means? A longer chapter of course

That night, you laid in your bed, just staring at the ceiling. Outside, it was bitter cold, with strong winds that rattled the loose glass in your window. This was the numbest you had felt in a long time. While you had expected to make more sense of the situation by going to their house, you managed to make matters worse and to upset Sans. Whether he was simply hurt or actually mad at you, you couldn’t tell. Either way, you wanted to make it better, but where would you have even began? Sans was unreadable half the time.

You had to put the facts together, piece by piece, form a story.

Getting up from your bed, you reached for a white board that had been shoved behind your dresser and nearly forgotten. Attached to your fridge was a dry erase marker, which you tested out before actually writing anything down. Sans and Papyrus were brothers, you knew that much. They had never mentioned any other family, and in the album, all you saw was snow and other assorted monsters.

And that human child.

That picture must have been pretty old, you assumed, so that child would be a teenager. The other monsters included some goat-looking creatures, a lizard, and a mer-person. There was nothing to connect with them, but you wrote them down as ‘friends’. Then again, wasn’t the lizard in a lab coat? Could they have been responsible for that complicated writing in the garage? That may have been a stretch. Besides, you hadn’t really gotten a GOOD look at everyone in the photo, you had really just skimmed it and hoped you weren’t being too invasive.

Then again, what you were doing with the whiteboard was rather invasive. You just had to tell yourself Sans left you with no choice.

Snowdin. That was what Papyrus had mentioned a few times, the place where they had lived underground. What kind of place was it? What kind of people had lived there alongside the skeletons? Why was Sans so against remembering it? Especially when you considered the fact that Sans had mentioned it not long ago when talking about Papyrus. What made any of it so different?

With a small sigh, you simply wrote ‘snowdin’ with a question mark and ‘x’ beside it. You figured there were far too many questions and no answers yet about it.

You also had to consider the unusual large amount of jobs Sans worked. Eleven, Papyrus had said, and you assumed it went down to ten now. It was apparent that they lived well, so all of that money must have gone towards their lifestyle. Was Sans filling a void in his life, trying to be so busy? Or were they really that strapped for cash? There was a rumor a while back that monsters were rich, since their currency was straight up gold coins and the conversion was massively in their favor. So perhaps Sans WAS avoiding something, he probably had a lot of money in savings. That didn’t entirely add up, however, did it? Papyrus seemed to be the only thing that made him happy, so why would he avoid being home?

You wrote down ‘Void’ and ‘unnecessary jobs’ both with question marks. It was obvious that you couldn’t quite have evidence that he was purposefully overworking himself. Your phone vibrated on the dresser, alerting you of a text.

“Sorry my brother mite have scared u :-(“

Papyrus seemed to have waited a long time to send that text. He must have been worried that you didn’t want to speak to him, either. You glanced at the whiteboard and began to think.

“Its fine. I prob just upset him and should say sorry. Can I ask aomething?”

You had sent the text before you saw your typo. Darn your shaky hands.

“Who is that :-/”

He clearly doesn’t know the ins and outs of typos yet. Shame.

“Something. I want to ask Something.”

You were sure to be extra clear this time.

“Oh go 4 it :-o”

Papyrus really seemed to enjoy those smileys with the nose. Odd, considering he had no nose.

“Who were those other monsters in that photo in your album?”

There was a long moment of silence. He wasn’t responding as quickly as he had been, and you wondered if it was just a lengthy response or if he was as reluctant as his brother to talk about anything. Then again, this was Papyrus, he was probably just typing out a paragraph trying to explain his excitement all at once.

“Those are our friends from the underground!!! Undyne is really cool and Alphys is a giant nerd and the king and his clone are good monsters to also the human u should really meet them!!!”

That was shorter than you thought it’d be, and actually made everything more confusing for you, but it had been worth a shot.

“Thanks Papyrus.”

He had sent a text after your appreciation, but you knew it would just be another smiley, so you chose to ignore it for the moment. You had to add to the whiteboard. Next to ‘friends’ you listed the names he managed to actually give you as well as the mention of royalty. That was when it hit you; that must have been Asgore. You had only ever heard of the king of monsters, never seen him, but that was the only thing that made sense. How on earth was Papyrus friends with the KING of ALL monsters? Then again, he was a rather charming skeleton. Probably had been friends with just about everyone.

You glanced at the time and frowned. It was already past ten and you knew you had to get up early to attend your first classes of the year. You weren’t all that excited, not after the stress you had suddenly gained just due to some monster. Tomorrow, and the whole week, was going to be rough.

***

Monday was a thing. You went to your classes and did what you had to, spending a majority of time covering the syllabus and thinking about the Skeleton brother’s. You went through the day without much issue, heading home to find that you missed a text from Papyrus. You spent the evening chatting with him about Undyne, who you learned a LOT about. She sounded kind of scary, but if she was cool with Papyrus, there was no way she was all bad.

Tuesday just kinda happened. You only had one class, so you were home pretty early. You and Papyrus went out for lunch, eating at some back-alley monster place called Grilby’s. It was delicious, but you remembered how monster food just kinda… got eaten. It certainly wasn’t going to pass through you. The only weird thing of note was a monster who asked Papyrus why Sans wasn’t with him.

“He has his own lunch schedule and I have other, better friends to spend time with.” The answer had shocked you. Something must have happened between the brothers, because Papyrus was acting bitter towards Sans. You chose not to ask.

Wednesday was uneventful. You felt eyes watching you on your way home.

Thursday came around, and when you texted Papyrus, he immediately asked if you would come over that weekend for a movie night. While hesitant, you still wanted to spend time with him, whether Sans cared at all for you or not.

“Would Sans mind?” You texted back.

“He says hes sry :-P”

Sorry? Was Sans actually feeling remorse for what YOU did to him? Or… was he actually in the wrong in this case? You weren’t always the best at knowing. Regardless, you accepted the invitation and looked forward to some more bonding with Papyrus, who you were starting to see as one of your best friends. He was kind, and considerate, but proud. He was one of those friends who would have your back no matter what and just genuinely enjoyed your company. You needed that.

Friday, after class, you headed home, wiped out from the intense week of school. You wanted nothing more than to just crawl into bed and pass out for 24 hours until it was movie time. That was, until there was a familiar sensation crawling up your spine. Sans was behind you, wasn’t he? With a sharp inhale of breath, you turned gently and saw exactly who you thought you’d see.

“Hey.” His expression was softened. “Wanna get a bite to eat?” As confused as you were, you also wanted to see where this went, so you just nodded.

You were back at Grilby’s, this time with the monster you least suspected to be across from. Sans looked just as nervous as you, if you were to be completely honest. You hadn’t said a word to him yet and you didn’t know if you had it in you to speak up at all.

“I wasn’t wrong, by the way…” His head turned slightly away from you. “You can’t possibly understand.” What a great way to start off. What an asshole. It wasn’t like he ever gave you a chance to understand what he was EVER talking about. You felt frustration build up inside of you.

Sans paused as the waiter came over, and seeing as you weren’t responding, he ordered for the both of you.

“Look. It’s not about ‘understanding’ or trying to help. It wouldn’t matter in the end. But this isn’t the end, is it?” Sans always spoke in cryptic messages, and you hated yourself for hanging on his every word. “Not yet, anyway. And Papyrus REALLY likes you. So, let’s be pals, pal.” Your food was set in front of you, but you continued to stare Sans down.

“Why do you even care?” It was harsh, even for you, but you were a bit fed up with his bullshit. It was a long week and you only wanted to sleep and hang out with Papyrus. You had no time for mindgames.

“You’re the closest.” More cryptic words.

“What does that even mean, Sans?”

“You mean something.”

Your face suddenly grew warm. Welp, that shut you up real fast. Whether he meant to Papyrus or to himself, it didn’t matter. He was being genuine, something you rarely saw.

“And you’ll only begin to mean more, won’t you?” Sans had regained his composure and once again had the upper hand in this conversation. “Welp. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow… pal.”

He didn’t teleport for once, just walked away, whispering to Grilby just before he left.


	11. Movie Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've started aiming for 1500 words minimum per chapter, so wish me luck in that regard
> 
> Also holyyy snap, 3000+ hits and 200+ kudos is absolutely insane! Thank you guys so much for the support and I'm so ecstatic you're all loving it so much! I've received so many kind comments and stories and now even awesome fanart? You're all super rad and I hope you like this next chapter as well!

After Sans had left the restaurant, you stayed and ate your food in silent contemplation. What a mystery that skeleton was. When you asked your waiter for the bill, however, you were shocked to find it had already been taken care of. So you left, an uncomfortable feeling settling in your stomach.

You knew for a fact that movie night was going to be an interesting occasion. After a long and hard week, it was great that you were finally going to have some chill time, but a part of you was obviously worried due to a number of factors.

One: Papyrus seemed to be upset with his brother and you had no real idea why. Two: You still weren’t sure if you and Sans were really okay yet, or even what he meant by what he said. Three: Papyrus had just sent you a text informing you that he invited another friend over. He was sweet to double check that it was fine with you, but at the same time you dreaded this next meeting you knew would one day come. Undyne. The used to be head of the royal guard who would suplex a boulder just because she could.

Also known as Papyrus’ friend, so really… she couldn’t be that bad, right? Still, Papyrus was a ball of sunshine and you were a human, one that Undyne could despise within an instant. You knew she had befriended humans before, but it had also been her job to kill them, so you just weren’t sure where you would stand in her eyes. You also wondered if she smelled of fish.

Ending up home after quite the long night, you collapsed immediately onto your bed, face first. Week one was done and over with and now you faced arguably the most difficult trial the next day: making friends with monsters. You had no idea how you wound up in this mess, what happened to having regular old human friends? That thought may have been a bit rude. Within the next few minutes, you had fallen asleep.

***

You stood before the familiar home, shifting your weight from one leg to the other in nervousness. Obviously, that night could have been an entire disaster, but you had no idea how it would be played out. You gathered up your courage and stepped up to the door, knocking gently on the oak wood. Papyrus answered as you assumed was custom, a grinning face greeting you instantly.

“Human! You’re here!” The skeleton greeted loudly. From deeper within the home you heard another voice.

“Woah the human’s here already?!” Out from seemingly nowhere, Undyne slid into view with grace and coordination. There was fifteen feet between the two of you, if you had ran then maybe…

She approached you, her toothy grin causing you to straighten up and swallow hard. Her posture was interesting, all hunched forward when she walked up to you, but still tall and menacing and her hair was pulled back tightly in a ponytail. That had nothing to do with her posture but sure did let you see every part of her scary face.

“What’s up, punk?!” She was just as loud as Papyrus, except obviously very different. You were frozen in fear.

“They don’t talk much.” Papyrus quickly interjected, saving you. Bless that spaghetti loving skeleton.

“What? Lame.” Undyne put her hands on her hips, pouting as she wandered off again. You took this opportunity to step inside the home, although it may have been wiser had you ran away. She would have caught you, however.

Peering into the home, you noticed Sans in the kitchen, working on what looked to be a crossword in the newspaper. He hadn’t even looked up upon your arrival. Nor did he look up when Undyne quite literally suplexed the fridge and then stared you down. Papyrus on the other hand sweated profusely.

“Undyne! we just replaced that…” He whined, to which Undyne laughed.

“Whoops, sorry, Paps!!! Gotta let the new kid know I still got it!” What was that even supposed to mean? Was she concerned that you would think she was weak just because she wasn’t a royal guard leader anymore? Probably. Regardless, it worked in her favor. Also: Paps.

“Human, feel free to get comfortable!” Your attention turned to Papyrus again, who was motioning towards the couch, which you had just noticed was transformed into a huge blanket and pillow pile. Getting comfortable was not a choice here, it just happened. You settled down somewhere near the center of the floof and sank into it. This was the life.

“NGAHH!” Undyne went flying towards the edge of the pile, tackling it with all her force. Another display of strength perhaps. “Ha-ha! Nailed it! Man, I wish Alphys was here to enjoy this.” You recognized the name, but you couldn’t quite recall who that was.

All the while, Sans was just content with his crossword, scribbling down letters every few moments or so. He still refused to look up at all from the paper. For some reason, that bothered you.

“Let’s get this movie started!” Papyrus cheered, with Undyne following shortly after. You chuckled at their combined enthusiasm. Papyrus bent down to set up the movie and that appeared to be all Sans needed to react at all. He hopped down from his spot at the table, rolling up the newspaper and tucking it under his arm.

“Welp, let me just get out of your way.” Sans closed his eyes, humming as he passed right behind Papyrus. It was clear they still weren’t talking much since it wasn’t Papyrus who insisted Sans join you guys.

“Aww come on, Lazy bones, pop a squat!” Undyne called out to Sans. Now THAT was a fitting nickname. Sans stopped walking just at the foot of the stairs. He peered back at Undyne, then to Papyrus, and then finally to you. There was a pause in the room.

“Nah, ‘Paps’ wouldn’t like that.” Sans put a lot of emphasis on the nickname, causing Papyrus to side eye him as he sat down in between you and Undyne.

“Are you two seriously still fighting? Ugh.” Undyne rolled her eyes. Apparently she heard a lot more about this dispute than you had.

“It’s not anything like fighting! I haven’t used a single bone!” Papyrus insisted, pouting much like a child.

“Sans. Sit down. Papyrus. Suck it up.” Undyne was glaring at them both, eyes crossed. With that, the shorter of the two shrugged and made his way on over. Sans sat down right beside you, close enough that you could feel his jacket barely touching your own. This was… awkward. Papyrus was still pouting, but he didn’t dare say another word. “Awesome! Let’s start the movie!”

You still hadn’t said a word this entire time, it was all too much. The movie hadn’t even started. Sans looked cool as a cucumber, however, arms behind his head and right leg crossed over the left. You wondered if he ever changed his outfit. Maybe you shouldn’t have been paying so much attention to him, though, because his eyes opened and slowly shifted toward you. Damn he looked smug.

“Need something?” He whispered as Papyrus and Undyne argued about subtitles or not. You felt your face grow warm. How on earth was he so relaxed now? The night before he was being a total cryptic-asshole!

You refused to respond, looking away from him with a nervous frown. He merely chuckled lightly and focused again on the screen.

“I’M HARD OF HEARING JUST PUT THEM ON!” Undyne was taking this very serious. Papyrus finally gave in, turning on the subtitles and finally hitting play. You had no idea what movie this was, probably one of those underground indie monster flicks. Either way, this was going to be a longgg night.

The movie honestly made very little sense. It was riddled with plot holes and awful writing, but both Papyrus and Undyne were laughing the entire time. You would force awkward chuckles, just trying to assure Papyrus you were having a good time. Beside you, Sans looked to be napping, chest gently moving up and down. Weird since you didn’t think Skeleton’s breathed. Then again, they sweat, so…

“Did my lazy brother fall asleep again?!” Papyrus was suddenly looking over at Sans, who didn’t move an inch. Maybe like a centimeter, but that was because of the apparent breathing.

“He fell asleep a while ago.” You commented, trying not to look to your right or to your left. Just straight ahead, gotta avoid angry gazes.

“Why haven’t you guys, like, just worked this the hell out?” Undyne was lounging around in what appeared to be a really uncomfortable position.

“Sans is mean.” The simple reply from Papyrus nearly made you squeak in laughter.

“What did you guys argue about?” You asked quickly.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Papyrus really was like a small child. And really, you usually would continue questioning, but maybe that wasn’t the right approach, you should respect--

“They were fighting about you, duh.” Undyne interrupted your thought completely.


	12. Long Time Coming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise short chapter before bed!! Because I feel bad for cliffhangerssss

Your mind went blank, it was as if time had slowed down completely. She had to be joking, right? Luckily, before you could panic TOO much, Papyrus hurriedly began to explain.

“It’s not what you think!!! Sans had upset you and when I confronted him he was a jerk!!! And!!! Said!!! He didn’t care!!!” Papyrus was sweating again, fists held up to his mouth and eyebrow (bones?) furrowed. “He doesn’t care much anymore…” This was by far the saddest you had ever seen Papyrus, and both you and Undyne just had to watch. Sans continued his nap.

It wasn’t much, but you gently placed your hand on Papyrus’ shoulder as an attempt at comfort. He seemed appreciative.

“Just punch him in the guts and tell him to give a shit.” Undyne insisted with another eye roll. Her answer to things must have frequently been violence.

“But I think he cares about the human’s feelings! I think… he lied to me.” The skeleton’s entire face had sunk, he looked incredibly distressed. You had wondered before if Papyrus was capable of seeing things as they were, and the fact that he seemed all too aware of his brother’s lie made your heart hurt. Except… this didn’t at all make sense. Sans caring? About upsetting you? He seemed so… distant. His apologies were empty and his solutions half-assed and all this time---

Did he care?

“Uh, hey, hate to interrupt buuuut… Sans is gone.” Undyne jabbed a finger in the your direction, not at you, but next to you. With a small sigh, you looked over your shoulder and saw no one there. Sans was always paying attention, wasn’t he?

Ignoring the obvious embarrassment, you had more to sort through in your head. Why did Papyrus think Sans was lying about that? It was very apparent that Sans only cared about his brother, but then again, now they were in a fight or something? About you? Your head began to hurt and a bad feeling resettled into your stomach. You drew your knees to your chest as a way of making yourself smaller. The last thing you had wanted to do was be a burden.

You hadn’t heard what Papyrus said, but he was suddenly heading towards the garage and Undyne had awkwardly sat beside you.

“So, uh… Skeletons, amirite?” She gave you a large, toothy grin, but you knew it was forced. You didn’t feel like talking. “Listen, punk. Don’t let it get ya down. Did ya know I taught Papyrus everything he knows about cooking?” She had a thumb pointed at herself, looking rather proud. You remembered the spaghetti and shivered.

Suddenly, you heard something from the garage that grabbed your attention. It sounded like Papyrus and Sans, but… mostly Papyrus. He was certainly doing a lot of talking. So that was where Sans had ran off to, his garage? You awkwardly glanced to your right and noticed a number of scribbles on the crossword page, none of which related to solving the crossword. It was more complicated looking math and notes to himself. It was rude to read them, but you thought you saw something to do with Papyrus.

“Oh jeez, Papyrus is really laying into him, isn’t he?” Undyne commented, wide eyed as she listened. “Though I guess in his own Papyrus-brand way. Guy doesn’t really have a mean bone in his body.” Wasn’t she allegedly hard of hearing? How was she able to make out what they were saying when you couldn’t?

It was quite some time before the voices stopped and the house became silent except for the movie, which had reached its credits. As Papyrus returned, followed by a very solemn looking Sans, you instinctively stood up. That was when you saw Papyrus’ face better, and he wasn’t looking so happy either.

“I’m sorry.” Sans was first to speak, not even looking at you. “Heh… kinda ruined movie night, didn’t I? Sorry about that, real boneheaded of me.” He grinned up at you, but looking at his eyes, you felt he was once again trying to cover up some sort of pain.

“Are you guys, uhh…” Undyne started.

“Yeah. We’re fine.” Sans snatched up the newspaper and tucked it under his arm once more. “Catch you all later.” As he passed by you, he winked, then turned to head up the stairs toward his room.

“Yeesh. You guys really spent a while in there. That was a long time coming, wasn’t it?” As perceptible as always, Undyne. You knew she was right even before Papyrus nodded his head.

You wanted to check on Sans, sure, but he didn’t need you, At least not as much as Papyrus probably did at that moment. You and Undyne sat him down and went back in the movie to where you had left off. It ended up taking a good while for it to finish, and by the time it had, you noticed both Undyne and Papyrus were fast asleep. The skeleton had a pillow clutched tightly and smiled even in sleep, while Undyne had all her arms spread in weird directions and actually snored. It was one of the most adorable sights you had seen in a long while.

You stretched your arms and were about to lean back and let the blankets engulf you when you noticed Sans at the bottom of the steps, just looking at his brother. When he spoke, it was quiet and you had to strain to hear him.

“He’s all I have left. Since… Gaster. You wouldn’t know him.” Sans approached you, retaking his previous spot. “But Papyrus really cares about you. And I think I might, too. Ironic, isn’t it?” You were pretty sure that wasn’t the definition of ironic, but regardless, was Sans being for real? Maybe you were asleep, too, and this was just some weird dream. “Three months. How’d ya ever put up with me?” His grin only got wider with that statement.

“Why’d you lie?” You whispered back. That question made Sans’ grin falter as he seemed to think of his answer.

“He doesn’t understand.” That felt familiar. “And neither can you. What happened in the underground… the things I saw. Or didn’t see.” He let out a small chuckle and stood again. “I thought if things weren’t permanent… then why bother? A poor excuse for being lazy.” You watched as he headed back for the stairs, but again, he stopped and looked back at you. “Time’s running out, but you’ll make the most of it, won’t you?”

With that, he left you.

You listened to his footsteps until they were too far gone to hear.


	13. Wakey Wakey, Eggs and... Puns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not super happy with this chapter, but it's kinda serving as filler, since I couldn't just skip over it and I'm still figuring out how I wanna pace the next couple events  
> (It's a first! I actually have an idea where this is going!)
> 
> Like my stuff? Please consider commissioning me, I'm so sorry to keep bringing it up, but ya know ;-;  
> Thanks for all the support, I promise to have another chapter out tomorrow afternoon!

Morning had arrived before you knew it, and once again, you couldn’t remember falling asleep. A blanket had been draped over your body and it seemed most of the comfy pile had been cleaned up, with all of the cloth and pillows stacked up to the left of the couch. That, by the way, was where you had found yourself sleeping. Someone must have moved you.

From where you were laid down, you could hear voices and actually smelled the aroma of food coming from the kitchen. You decided to wait a little bit before you got up.

“Paps, you’re getting it all wrong!!! You need to try harder!” How had you not woken up early if Undyne was always that loud? She was probably the one who moved you… maybe you were more tired than you thought last night.

“Yeah, Papyrus. Put some more backbone into it.”

“Get some new puns, Sans!” Papyrus openly complained, but in that not serious way he had about him. You were rather glad to hear them being themselves again. Maybe night time really was the time for feelings and such.

“Do you have any fish puns?” Undyne prompted.

“Hmm… no, but I’ll try and think of some just for the Halibut.” You could practically hear Sans wink.

“Awesome! That was the worst!” She was laughing way too hard to have actually hated it. Regardless, it was time you finally got up. Somehow all these monsters who lived without the sun were earlier risers than you. Or… was that why? They could have been intensely sensitive to the light in their eyes.

Dragging your feet as you headed toward the kitchen, you rubbed at your eyes and mumbled something that was supposed to be Good Morning except it came out more as ‘Gnnmrnn’. Undynde flashed her usual toothy grin and gave a wave from across the kitchen.

“Sup! You sure sleep a lot, huh?” She probably wasn’t wrong, but you hadn’t even had the chance to check the time. Sans and Papyrus didn’t really have a microwave or clock anywhere to be seen. You kind of glanced at the fridge and remembered why it was upside down and slightly dented. Fish lady was strong.

“Ya hungry, pal?” Sans asked, sitting down at the table and not ON it for once. You were too tired to talk yet, so you simply nodded and sat down across from him.

Papyrus was humming away, cooking something on the stove top. It actually smelled promising, but you weren’t all there yet, so who really knew.

“Sans was just telling some lame nerd-puns, so you didn’t miss anything. No offense, Sans.” Undyne filled you in.

“None taken. I’m used to herring that.” Sans responded to her before drinking straight out of a ketchup bottle that was in his coat. Were you even awake?

From the stove, Papyrus did another fancy spin and presented you all with a large bowl of scrambled eggs. Before any of you could make a move, however, he also managed to toss out a bunch of plastic plates in front of each of you. That was what you would have liked to say, but in all honesty, the one tossed at Undyne hit her in the head and the one heading towards Sans actually bonked against the garage door. Only your plate went where it was supposed to. Still, you gave a small golf-ish clap for the action. Papyrus bowed.

Without your noticing, Sans had retrieved his plate and had already taken from the serving bowl, whereas Undyne was still stood there in shock. After a moment, she kicked the plate up into the air much like someone would do with a soccer ball and round-house kicked it to the table. If you were her, you wouldn’t have eaten off that plate any more.

Still, she sat down, hunched forward as she piled eggs onto her plate. In your groggy daze, you hadn’t even gotten any food for yourself, but you were grateful to find that Undyne didn’t take EVERYTHING. As you took a reasonable amount for yourself, you glanced to your right and noticed that sans was, once again, already done. Someone needed to have him under constant surveillance just to figure him out. That would have been creepy, though, right? Yeah.

Shoving aside your random thoughts, you took a bite of the eggs and found yourself pleasantly surprised. They actually tasted fine. Not good, no, but fine. Undyne was shoveling the food into her mouth. Apparently she thought it was pretty good, other wise you felt she would have been very vocal about her complaints.

“Not bad, Papyrus.” Sans spoke up again, leaning back in his chair.

“Not bad? This is a Masterpiece, Sans! One crafted by the mighty hands of Master Chef Papyrus!!! The Great!!!” His boundless energy was always a joy, even this early in the day. Er… you assumed it was early. Speaking of which, you pulled your phone out from your pocket and checked the time. It was only about ten in the morning. You felt a sense of relief wash over you. Then again, it WAS only Sunday, so not like you had too much to do. Well, homework… but there was always time for that.

The rest of the morning passed by with Sans making random fish puns and Undyne slowly hating herself for ever bringing them up. It was quite a bit better than what it had been the night before. The atmosphere was bright and cheery.

Eventually, like all things, it came to an end with you needing to head home.

“It was cool meeting you, punk.” Undyne ruffled your hair as she said goodbye.

“Please feel free to visit anytime, human!” Papyrus waved you off, and behind him, Sans just smiled. He said nothing as you disappeared into the distance, as if he had nothing left to say to you.

You remembered last night and felt your heart hurt for only a split second. What had he been talking about…

It was very apparent he had something he was hiding from you, and from everyone else as well. Why, though? What was it that he thought he needed to hide from Papyrus, his own brother? A particular thing he said popped into your head.

_Time’s running out._

Sans must have known something no one else did. That was what scared you the most; it was like he saw an apocalypse coming and didn’t have the heart to speak up about it. Was that it? No, that seemed far fetched, even by monster standards.

On top of all of that, there was the less important fact that he admitted he cared about you. Well, actually he only said he might care, but that was probably his way of confessing that he did. To what extent he cared, you had no clue.

Sans had also made it incredibly clear that Papyrus really liked you. Again, to what extent, it was anyone's guess.

You found yourself home again without even thinking about it and unlocked the door. Your apartment was obviously just as it had been, a few shirts lying around near the futon and crumbs left up on the counter top. You had meant to clean that up. The entire week went by in a blur of events that hardly made any sense at all.

With a huff, you approached the whiteboard and wrote some notes down about Undyne and her straightforward attitude. She was going to be fun to have around, you thought, both serious and sarcastic at the same time. Underneath the word ‘void’, you scribbled a note about Gaster. You struggled to figure out the spelling, but settled on with an ‘e’. Who was he, and why was he gone from Sans’ life? Had Papyrus known him? He had to have known him, right? Sans and Papyrus were so close, or at least they were.

Once again, you were left with more questions than answers, and it was getting difficult playing ‘detective’. This was all going to take some time.


	14. Something Fishy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said I'd try for 1500 words per chapter  
> Ehh... that's hard
> 
> Also sorry for the slight delay, I was out of the house a lot all of a sudden

That night, you paced around the tiny apartment, face scrunched up in thought. As if you hadn’t already analyzed things enough, you began to think more on Sans. What exactly was all that intense math in the garage for? And how had Papyrus known that Sans would have been in there? If you continued along the ‘He knows about an apocalypse’ route, then all those numbers could have been about time and trajectory and all that junk you hadn’t known how it was calculated. There was a number of things pertaining to minutes, hours, even up to years, so impending doom kinda seemed reasonable?

No matter what, you needed some sleep after your eventful and incredibly stressful weekend. Funny, wasn’t it supposed to be relaxing? It was, obviously, just that it was also full of the usual awkwardness you could have done without.

Monday, you woke up and went about your new routine, receiving a text from someone you hadn’t expected. Undyne was asking to hang out Tuesday afternoon. She probably heard from Papyrus that you only had the one morning class then. On top of that, she only could have gotten your number from Papyrus as well.

Come Tuesday, you had finished your class and were waiting for Undyne at some corner with a small flower stall behind you. Looking at the stall gave you flashbacks to the Nice Cream Stall. You wondered if it was there anymore. The vendor made eye contact with you and you quickly hid behind your phone before they could try to sell you anything.

It was a few more minutes before you heard Undyne calling your name. Turning on your heel, you faced her and suddenly felt confused.

“Wait a minute, I’ve never told you my name…” You muttered only loud enoug for her to hear.

“Papyrus told me it.” She shrugged at you as if it was no big deal.

“I never told Papyrus my name either.”

“You wore a name tag, didn’t ya?”

You mentally kicked yourself and then punched a wall. In your head of course. Outside, you smiled pleasantly and nodded with a scrunched up nose. Curse the convenience of it all. At that rate, you’d never have to introduce yourself to anyone. Papyrus was always talking about his friends, and now that you were on that list, everyone must have known about you to some extent. After all, you doubted they had many human friends. Aside from that one in the photo, that was.

“Come on, punk, I gotta show you something!!” Undyne gripped your wrist and began dragging you away. Had you acknowledged how weird this was? She hadn’t given any details the day before about WHY she wanted to spend time together, just decided it was a good idea. You wondered if she had some kind of job, just like Sans. While being led to who knew where, you assumed it’d be alright to ask questions and learn about her.

“Do you not have work today?” You quickly squeaked out as she tugged you to make a sharp turn right.

“Lunch break, kinda. Gym is only in the morning and pretty late afternoon, so I ain’t got kids to teach. Those little brats are growing up so fast, they’ll be able to kill with a glance.” She actually seemed choked up for a second. “I’m so proud of my little monsters.”

So a gym teacher? That was both fitting and something you would have never had guessed. Maybe she was good with kids? That, or monster kids were just different. You felt there was a connection to be made, but it took you a moment to piece it together. All the while, Undyne dragged you around in odd alleyways, along crowded streets (You noted that everyone leapt out of her way as she approached), and finally to some park you had never noticed before. It was tiny, but secluded.

Four alleyways converged on the space, but they were so long gone from the main streets that you could barely hear the rumble of cars and voices from where you stood. Something about it felt magical.

“Here it is!!!” She stuck out her arms to show it off and you slowly walked around her to get a better view. It wasn’t necessarily spectacular, but it had hedges and a small bench with yellow flowers surrounding it at the base. A small bird bath sat in the corner of the grass, nearly empty however. The coming rain would be good for the place.

“How’d you find this?” You wondered aloud. Undyne seemed to be confused by your inquisitive nature, seeing as you rarely spoke and most of the time it was a question.

“Uh, I dunno. Got lost looking for Grilby’s one day. But get this: it’s like, not totally overgrown, right? So! Someone’s gotta be looking after it. Weird, right?” She looked utterly fascinated by the small area, and you shared in that same feeling, odd as it was.

“Yeah… weird.” However, you just assumed it was still city owned and perhaps was only recently cleaned up again. After all, the bird bath was near empty.

“It reminds me of Asgore’s garden… er, when he had one. Underground.”

There was his name again, so casually mentioned. The King of All Monsters. Then again, with Undyne, it made sense. She had been the HEAD of the royal guard, meaning she was the king’s right hand, unless of course he had some kind of advisor. She would have been close to him.

“He started a new garden, but… it’s also kind of the school’s. How lame, amirite?” She laughed as if there was a joke to be seen in there. You didn’t quite understand monster humor yet.

You and Undyne spent a few more minutes together before she had to return to work. You had meant to ask her more questions about the underground and the king himself, but perhaps that was better saved for another time. After all, she promised to introduce you to Alphys the time ‘the group’ was all together.

Were you somehow accepted into their circle? Were you considered to be on the same level rather than just the token human? That was a weird concept to think about, so you pushed it out of your mind.

As Wednesday came around, you continued on as normal. Papyrus was already texting you about the weekend, trying to think of what to do with everyone else. Had that been a regular thing even before you met them? Papyrus did seem like quite the extrovert, so you wouldn’t have put it past him.

Thursday night, you were slightly spooked by a surprise visit from Sans outside of your apartment. At that point you were getting used to his popping up randomly. He didn’t even have much to say, just wanted to try out a new joke on you. At that point, you had been so tired that you actually laughed at an awful fish pun.

Sans looked happy.

As quick as he had arrived, he was gone, but you honestly didn’t mind the random intrusion.

Friday arrived and you were glad to be on the last day of school for the week. It was time to look forward to what Papyrus had planned for everyone. He still hadn’t managed to share the details with you, but promised to text you that night. It was night. He hadn’t texted yet.

With a sigh, you mindlessly scrolled through the internet on your phone, until suddenly a message popped up.

It was from Papyrus, obviously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so this is the first of probably a few different choices I want YOU guys to make  
> And by that I mean: Decide what Papyrus chose to do with everyone. It could be something as chill as a board game night or like a flipping beach episode in an anime, just, give me some ideas (Honestly I may use everyone's ideas at SOME point, I'll just pick whichever clicks with me best or an overwhelmingly popular idea.)  
> So yeah! Please include any ideas for the next chapter in your comments  
> Thanks as always for reading and enjoying this!


	15. Mandatory Beach Episode

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I received so many great ideas, but ultimately the beach won out  
> Just due to timing, writing inspiration, and overwhelming support for the idea
> 
> No fear, however! Ideas such as an amusement park trip, Laser tag, video/board games, camping, and more shall be utilized! Just, at different times!  
> Thanks so much, both for the ideas, and the support for this story! You guys are so awesome it makes me really happy!

The massive wall of text you had received from Papyrus was astounding to say the least. In fact, you completely skipped over it to see that the final sentence asked for you to just call him. With a deep breath, you did. The phone rang twice until:

“Hello?” Papyrus answered as if he had no idea why someone was calling him.

“Hey, Papyrus, it’s me.” It came to your attention you had never been on the phone with him before. It couldn’t have been that different from talking in person, however, right?

“Ah! Human! Let me describe to you the plans for tomorrow!” You rubbed at your right eye and waited for the long explanation to come. “A certain friend of mine insisted we go to the beach since we drained the pool.” Papyrus didn’t seem very happy about that.

“IT’S NECESSARY!” You heard Undyne yelling in the background of the phone call. That certainly explained a lot. She was some kind of fish-monster, so she probably loved swimming. You hadn’t wanted to assume before hand, because who really knew and you weren’t about to be called out as some prejudiced human or something.

“Anyyywayyy… You can finally meet Doctor Alphys! Arrive at my house early tomorrow morning and bring what you need, of course!” Papyrus hung up without saying goodbye, but that was just his way, wasn’t it? You could have complained that heading down to the beach in September was a BAD idea, but as always, you never intended to break Papyrus’ heart like that. He was so genuinely kind. Sans on the other hand? Eh. You were indifferent to hurting his feelings.

That wasn’t entirely true, however, you were growing to enjoy his company, much like Papyrus’. Sure, he was definitely an asshole early on, but he had shown growth even within just two weeks of spending actual time with him.

Undyne seemed really great, too, and not quite as scary as you imagined. That, too, wasn’t entirely true. She was JUST as terrifying as you thought, but at least you wound up on her good side. That small park she had shown you was something else. You planned to go back to it sometime.

Stretching, you began to walk towards your bed and collapsed face-first into it. Not nearly as fun as everyone made it out to seem in the movies. Your nose hurt.

***

The sun had already risen by the time your alarm blared at you. Papyrus wanted you there early, so you relied on your clock to wake you in time. It was Saturday after all, the usual day to sleep in to at least ten. While stuck in your thoughts, the alarm still sounded and it took a few swings of the arm to shut it up.

The rest of your routine became a blur as you struggled to be fully awake. You snatched up only a few things that you needed and left the apartment with a small yawn. One of your neighbors waved and you weakly mimicked the motion.

As you arrived at the home, you noted the spacious car parked in their driveway, which was usually bare. It was probably Undyne’s or Alphys’. You took your time walking up to the door, rubbing more sleep out of your eyes with your right hand before using it to knock as well. The left hand was holding your small bag of stuff. The day was particularly warm for September standards, but truth be told, it was still chilly.

“NO I GOT IT!” There was a loud thumping sound that caused you to flinch before the door was finally opened. Undyne greeted you with her wide grin, her right hand seeming to be pushing Papyrus out of view for the most part. What a goofy bunch.

“Hey, punk! How’s it going?” She sang, before Papyrus fell to the floor with a thud. He stared up at you, confused for a second as to how he was on the ground.

“Ah! Greetings, human!” Since your last chat with Undyne, you began to wonder why Papyrus never used your name. Not like you minded the nick name, it just struck you as strange. Heck… none of them had ever said your name to you… odd.

The two clearly competitive monsters ushered you inside and shut the door behind you. As per usual, things around the house looked to be unchanged, except there was someone you didn’t immediately recognize standing in the doorway of the kitchen. However, your mind clicked her into place and you remembered: That had to be Alphys. She looked absurdly nervous, even by your own standards. Like, she was visibly sweating already and hid her face in her hands. You thought it best not to bring any attention to her yourself.

“Alphys!!! Come meet the human!” Undyne hurriedly did what you were avoiding. Alphys only became shyer.

“U-Uhhh… hey there! I’m, uh, I’m Alphys.” Her manner of speech was stiff, as if she was forcing herself to be casual but wasn’t all too successful. You felt her pain. So instead of speaking up, you calmly waved a greeting and gave her a patient smile. You couldn’t tell if she appreciated it or not, she more so looked a bit taken aback.

“They don’t talk much or something. Lame, right?” Undyne took over Papyrus’ usual explanation and shrugged in passive defeat.

“Well, I-I’ve heard a lot about you so… uh… nice to meet you?” Why was that posed as a question? Oh great, now you asked a question.

Her response reminded you to think back on what you knew of her. The answer was not much. She had been the Royal Scientist, much like Undyne was the Royal Guard. She must have been incredibly intelligent, and she was fitting the nerd stereotype rather perfectly. How advanced was Monster technology, however? You didn’t really know too much about all of that, it certainly wasn’t old enough knowledge to have been shoved into your curriculum.

There was a long silence as you thought about various things and Alphys stared you down as if wanting to speak up again. Awkward. More awkward than any of your previous encounters. And there had been a number of awkward moments.

Speaking of awkward, Sans had just came down the stairs, immediately looking at you.

“What? No swim suit?” He questioned. You silently wondered if he meant that in any way other than curiosity. Instead of lingering on that possibility, you shook your head no.

“WHAT?! Aren’t ya gonna swim?” Undyne looked flabbergasted. Oh, hey. Second time you’ve used that word. You shrugged at her.

“It’s kind of cold for me. I just wanted to hang out.” You admitted to the group of monsters. Papyrus seemed disappointed, but he hadn’t said anything so who knew.

“Ughhh, fine. Be a little wimp. I’m going to change before we hit the road. C’mon, Alphys.” Undyne gripped the scientist’s hand in her own, and based on the blush Alphys now sported, you knew what was going on there.

“Oooo! I should change, too!” Papyrus scampered off, to presumably his own room. That left you and Sans alone again. You looked at Sans almost expectantly and he definitely noticed.

“Nah, I’m with you. It’s WAY too cold out for swimming.” He was always so casual, even going as far as too lean up against the wall. “Besides, you need someone to keep you company. Right?” Sans narrowed his eyes and grinned more, making you nervous. After a moment, he looked away. “No need to answer that. Hey, do you think Undyne will like that fish pun I told you?”

This skeleton was going to be the end of you. There was no way to make heads or tails of him.

“She’ll hate it.” You were being honest.

“Good.”

Papyrus nearly leaped down the stairs, posing in front of you and Sans. He was only wearing a pair of black swim trunks with a flame pattern along the bottom, sunglasses taped to his head, and a visor that said ‘radical’. What a dork. Still, it almost felt wrong seeing so much of him… unclothed. You didn’t know what you expected, but it unsettled you either way.

“What do you think? Feel free to use as many wonderful words as you need!” He held that pose like a champ.

“Looking good, bro.” Sans supplied, adding in a thumbs up for good measure.

“You look really cool, Papyrus.” The way he looked at you after you spoke was all too enjoyable. He immediately lost his cool, and while you had no idea why, it was kind of adorable how he began to sweat and nervously rubbed at the back of his head.

“Papyrus, you’re gorgeous!!! Or a total nerd, can’t tell the difference.” Undyne came down the stairs in what looked to be a professional swim outfit, equipped with goggles and skin tight, waterproof material. Alphys shyly arrived behind her, adorning a cute one-piece bathing suit, one with a little cute skirt that made her look adorable. She still appeared to be wildly uncomfortable.

“Hey, Undyne, I’ve been thinking… I should dolphinitely reel back on the fish puns, huh?”

“I hate you, Sans.” But she was grinning.


	16. Life's A Beach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter feels very disjointed to me, but that's probably just because I had to stop in the middle when I was getting a head ache last night. I usually only write chapters in one sitting :c  
> Thanks so much guys, in my three plus years of writing fanfiction, I don't believe I've ever had this much positivity in response to my work! You all comment and talk to me and draw fanart and it's absolutely amazing and I'm so glad to be making you guys happy, because you certainly return the favor ten fold <3

Undyne became impatient after only a few more moments of standing around, and soon everyone was piled into her car, which was rather spacious all things considered. She drove, of course, with Alphys sitting in the passenger seat. That left you and the skeleton brother’s in the back; Papyrus was to your right and Sans to your left (They both insisted on having window seats and you had no will to fight them on it). As soon as the car began to move, Papyrus rolled down his window and stuck his head out with the widest smile, much like a dog would.

It wasn’t even five minutes later that someone spoke up, and it was surprisingly Alphys.

“U-Uhh… Undyne? I think you’re, maybe… going the wrong way?” She spoke in a small voice; whether to avoid having the others listen in or due to fear of being yelled at, you weren’t sure.

“Babe, what have I told you?! I got this.” Undyne’s grip tightened on the steering wheel and she leaned forward. Alphys shrunk down in her seat.

“S-sorry.”

“I was just kidding, please tell me where the hell I’m going.” She straightened up again with a pout, clearly just as lost as Alphys had figured.

Sans leaned over the right, towards you. It was obvious he had some sort of snide comment to make, but that was still rather invasive on your space. Which may of have been a bad thing with him? You weren’t sure at this point.

“It’s been a long time and those two still haven’t figured out that Alphys should be driving.”  Sans commented, though you really weren’t sure why. Maybe he was letting you know they had been dating for a long time? In fact, how long had they been dating? Were they together in the underground? And why was the Royal Guard dating the Royal Scientist such an anime-sounding concept? Okay, scratch that question. Everything felt very anime at the moment.

After some guidance from Alphys, Undyne managed to get you all to the beach in one piece, though she did nearly ram some guy off the road. Papyrus was bummed out about the drive ending for all of two seconds, but then he saw the beach in the near-distance and hopped out of the car with exuberance. You appreciated his enthusiasm, it always made you feel like everything was truly an adventure.

Sans took his sweet time exiting the vehicle, so you left through Papyrus’ side. Alphys and Undyne were both already out, unpacking some stuff from the back of the car. You were happy to see they brought a couple of huge beach umbrellas, so at least you wouldn’t be burnt just hanging out on the beach. You brought your own towel and sunscreen, but there was no way you could have even fit an umbrella like that in your tiny apartment.

“Hey, punk! Go pick us a spot!” Undyne shouted at you, tossing a few towels in your direction. You basically caught them. Arguably. They may have all landed on your head, but still. You bunched up the towels in your hands and turned to approach the beach. It was mostly empty, just as you had thought, but there was a family you saw off to the left and another group not too far from them. Just out of instinct, you wandered off towards the right, avoiding the other people on the beach. After a short stroll, you found a good spot and laid out all of the towels on the sand. Undyne wasn’t far behind, however, and you stood looking out at the sea for only a minute.

“CATCH!” You flinched, thinking she was going to throw an umbrella at you, but she only laughed at your reaction. “I’m not THAT much of a jerk ahahaha!” She forcefully stuck the first umbrella in the sand with just one jab. The second followed shortly after. Behind her, Alphys arrived with a cute little ice chest, undoubtedly filled with drink and snacks. For being such a last minute idea, Undyne was prepared.

Papyrus  came down the slope and immediately ran towards the water in his usual, overly giddy fashion. He attempted a cannon ball (Or so you’d like to think) but instead simply flopped into the water, face first. It took a second, much like in a cartoon, before he slowly sank down into the waves.

“Oh jeez, that bonehead. PAPS!!!” Undyne ran in after him, holding something you didn’t quite see. She dove in and moments later, dragged the skeleton back to the shore. “You forgot something.” She took his right arm and attached a floaty to it, then repeated that on the other arm. Papyrus glanced at you and looked a bit embarrassed. You gave him a small smile.

It wasn’t long until it was just you and Sans underneath the umbrellas on the beach while the others swam and splashed around. Now that Papyrus was able to float, he seemed to be having a lot of fun. Sans, to your left, carefully sipped his drink (where did the liquid even go?) and stared out at the sea with you.

Neither of you had spoken to the other; it was just comfortable silence, the kind you fell in when you were caught up in your own thoughts. These thoughts you had, however, were just that of thinking, so really, the silence was bound to break eventually.

“This is nice, right?” Sans commented, eyes straight ahead. “Monsters… just able to have fun. Good laughs… bad weather, though.”

“It is kind of cold.” You admitted. It was maybe below eighty degrees fahrenheit, much colder than you would have ever swam in. Heck, you brought a jacket for that sole reason, in case it was colder. At least the sun was out and shining.

“It had to be cold. We couldn’t have come here any other time.” Sans was speaking in a cryptic manner again. Why did he have to be so roundabout with everything?

“What do you mean?”

“It’s been…” He paused, face very slightly strained. “Five years?” He looked painfully unsure. “Even after all that time, people, humans, can’t let go so easily. Monster’s are considered invasive.” His eyes shifted to the left and you followed his gaze, noting the other humans on the beach. They were staring, their faces a mix of discomfort and disgust. One of the children was looking right at you, seemingly confused.

You had allowed yourself to forget. Monsters were always seen as lesser to humans and while you tried to dismiss your own prejudice, you knew had you not worked at that Nice Cream stall for the summer, you would’ve been just as wary as those people. Would you have been as disgusted? No. You at least knew better than that.

Sans chugged the last of his drink and set it down next to him, looking back to his brother and the others. It was as if they had no idea they were being stared at. Judged. Papyrus probably wouldn’t have understood anyway… of course, it was entirely possible he had. He had shown before that he was fully capable of being serious and even knew when Sans was lying to him. Maybe he just didn’t want to think about it.

“Relax, pal. You’re straining your face.” Sans’ voice snapped you out of your thoughts once more. Without your realizing, you were glaring at the ground. “Anyway, I have some business to attend to. Try not to miss me too hard.” He winked at you as he stood, hands in his pockets, and walked away somewhere. Wait! Wasn’t he supposed to keep you company?! That asshole! Ah well. He was at least nice enough to say something before he left this time.

You laid back on the towels with a sigh. This was supposed to be relaxing, but Sans had managed to get you all riled up and bitter. Then again, he always seemed to have a reason for talking with you, like he had some message to get across. It would’ve helped if he hadn’t spoken in riddles, though.

“Uh, h-hey!” You looked up to see Alphys shyly waving at you. A nice surprise, in all honesty. “Mind if I, uh, join you?” She forced a smile, but you appreciated the gesture all the same.

“Go for it.” You responded, patting the spot beside you. She gratefully took a seat, still dripping from being in the water.

“Undyne and Papyrus are having a race. Didn’t want to be in the way…” She ended her explanation with a nervous laugh and avoided looking at you. Looking out to the ocean again, you saw Undyne and Papyrus preparing to take off, but you knew who would win. “They’re, uh… really competitive. B-but Undyne always wins, so…” You had no idea what she was trying to express.

“How long have they known each other?” You decided to try and continue the conversation.

“Oh! Uh! A long time! Papyrus wanted to be a, ya know. A Royal Guard. So I think he, like, slept outside Undyne’s house? Or… something. Sans knows the story better.” At least she tried. Still, you had no real idea what she was attempting to tell you. “H-Hey? Isn’t think kind of like an anime? They always have the one beach episode, heh.”

“Yeah… why is that? Fanservice?” You were genuinely curious for her opinion.

“I, uh.. I think it’s cause there’s so many chances for the main love interest to get injured and be rescued by their one true love and have a romantic smooch with the sunset in the background! It’s usually a real tear jerker episode that establishes the romantic tension and pulls the viewer in more just to have the next episodes disregard the moments entirely!” She really spilled her guts for that one.

“Huh. Guess that makes sense.”

Alphys stared at you for a moment, as if in deep thought,

“So which of us should pretend to drown?”

“Alphys, no.”

Another hour or so passed as you casually chatted with Alphys, until she decided to head back to the water. Which was fine, because you wanted to get up and walk around for a little bit. So you did, walking the perimeter of the boardwalk, which was mostly empty since the beach season had passed. That was when you saw it, though.

A hot dog stand. Sans working a hot dog stand.

“Heya, buddy. Want a hot dog? Only 5 dollars.” He looked at you with great amusement. You were simply baffled. So, you shook your head no with a perplexed look that made him grin even wider. “Yeah, maybe that’s too low. Anyway, did you actually want something?” One arm of his was resting on the counter, the other supporting his head’s weight as he watched you closely. Speechless, you again shook your head no. This only made him grin wider.

“Were you lonely?” Sans only dug at you more.

“I’m… going back to the beach.” You were visibly embarrassed, pouting as you walked off. Sans waved bye, wiggling his fingers.

You spent time doing a number of things, even getting some Nice Cream from a cute little stall and chatting with Papyrus, who attempted to convince you that he won the race with Undyne.

“Impressive.” You remarked. Papyrus beamed at you, clearly seeking your approval.

“It was no challenge for someone as great as me. I only wish you could have seen, Human.” You had no intention of letting him know you were there.

Returning back to your usual spot, you noted the other humans on the beach had packed up and left, leaving it to only your own group. Strange. It was only a little after one in the afternoon.

“Glub glub! Help Undyne! Glub!” You searched for the source of the voice and saw Alphys pathetically pretending to drown. So she was serious about that. Undyne took her time walking over, just staring in mild disbelief as her significant other squirmed around. She gently leaned down and lifted Alphys out of the water.

“Oh! Undyne! Cough! I think I may need! The smooch of life!” She wasn’t exactly the greatest actress.

“Alphys. Babe. I know you can swim.”

“O-Oh. Can I still get that smooch?”

Undyne smooched Alphys, and while there was no sunset in the background, at least she got her beach episode. Suddenly, Sans was behind you, and you only jumped a little at his presence.

“We should, uh, probably get out of here. There’s a storm coming.” He told you, jestering with his thumb back to the car. Damn it, autumn, you rainy season.

***

After cleaning up your set up, everyone piled back into the car and the drive back to Papyrus and Sans’ place began. The whole ride over, Papyrus rambled on about how much he loved swimming and how he never had the chance to before coming up to the surface. He was fun to listen to, but you kept getting distracted; it felt as if Sans was watching you the entire time.

Undyne pulled up in front of the home just in time for it to start sprinkling.

“Well that sucked. We were supposed to be there for another few hours.” She complained, getting out of the car.

“Ooo! But we can still hang out! Maybe play some games!” Papyrus was always optimistic, looking forward to the next opportunity to be with his friends.

“Yeah, I guess I could beat your ass at more things, I’m down.”

Everyone seemed on board with the idea, so you went into the home and settled in to stay for the rest of the evening.


	17. Stud Muffin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to get to game night merriment but apparently that's gonna be next chapter ahaha  
> Hey! I got a quick question, I'm thinking of streaming some Undertale Pacifist run later this week, do you guys wanna watch/be told when that's happening? Cause I'll just be playing through and spewing fun facts and you can chat with me and stuff
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting, you're all super awesome!

“LEAD ME TO THE SHOWER!” Undyne’s shout caused you to flinch. She was pointing at nothing in particular, one arm around Alphys shoulder as she stood, posed. How was she still so full of energy after being at the beach most of the day?

“This-a way!” Papyrus motioned towards the stairs, Undye marching up them with her lizard girlfriend not too far behind. “Funny! She forget where it is every time!”

“Is she really here that often?” You asked Sans in a quiet voice.

“Yup.” Suddenly, he didn’t seem very talkative. Instead, Sans walked on past you, over toward the stairs. “I think I’ll take a cue from them and get cleaned up.” He said before disappearing up the steps. It was now just you and Papyrus in the room, but you quickly felt the usual uncomfortable feeling you would expect. Sand. Even without ever stepping foot into the water, you still managed to get sand all over you. You must have been visibly frowning, because Papyrus looked concerned for your well being. How he managed that, you’d never know.

“Human, did you not bring a change of clothes?” You shook your head no. It was now your turn to look embarrassed. “No matter! I have something you could wear! It was supposed to be a gift, but… in these dire situations! We all must make sacrifices! Follow. Meee!” He leaped towards the stairs, but only made it to the first step. With a patient smile, you followed after each of his small, but surprisingly successful, leaps.

As you arrived to the second floor, you noted Sans’ room was still closed with colorful lights shining from below. Maybe one day you could solve THAT mystery. The bathroom door was closed as well and you heard the shower running with quiet chatter that was undoubtedly coming from the pair inside. Papyrus paid no mind to these things and simply opened up his door after staring at the sticky notes with disgust. Sans appeared to be difficult to live with sometimes.

“Welcome! To scenic, my room!” He opened the door in an over the top manner and let you inside. His room was… well. Kind of how you expected it to be.

To your immediate left was a large table. On top of it, dozens upon dones of figurines all posed in a number of manners. They looked to be rather expensive ones, collectibles, even. Behind the table was a large pirate sail, one of the classics with a skull and crossbones, something you didn’t necessarily imagine Papyrus to be interested in. A computer was to your right, opened up to some kind of social media you recognized as one of those Monster Only sites that human teenagers liked to be assholes on. You never really saw the point to that.

Papyrus speed walked past you and clicked the monitor off with a quiet ‘nyeh heh heh’. You decided not to ask.

In the back of the room, pushed up again the right wall was a rather normal looking bed, except for the comforter which had a bunch of pirate ships on it. How adorable. Even further back was a sliding door closet, where you assumed he kept all of his clothing. Lastly, to the left, there was a large bookshelf with all kinds of books you had never even heard of.

The skeleton watched as you looked around his room, and when you were finished, he sped on over to his closet and reached in for something tucked away in the back.

“Like I said, it was supposed to be a present for the holidays! But here you go!” In his hands was probably the greatest thing ever. You meant that in a ‘oh goodness Papyrus you adorable dork’ kind of way. It was a long sleeved white sweater, but in black sharpie, he had written ‘Cool Human’ on it. Underneath the sweater was a simple pair of black sweats. How he managed to know your sizing was beyond you. “I’ll let you get changed! Be back soon!” Papyrus zoomed on out of there, leaving you alone for the time being. Instead of dilly-dallying, however, you got right to changing, brushing off the excess sand, as best you could, onto the discarded clothing. The sweater and sweats were incredibly comfy, so you definitely couldn’t complain. You had changed rather quickly, though, so now you had some time to kill, that was if Papyrus had expected you to wait. You assumed he did, since you wanted to snoop a tiny bit more.

You wandered off towards the bookshelf, scanning the spines for anything of interest. There were a number of puzzle books, both on construction and intended for solving as well as a plethora of books aimed at young children. Papyrus was such a child at heart, you almost felt jealous how accepting of himself he was. Near the bottom row was a sectioned off area with a blue sticky note. You assumed these were Sans’ books. As you knelt down, the titles came into view and you noted the complexity of each. These appeared to be physics books, some about quantum theory, and a bunch just covering time travel alone. Every time you snooped around this place, it always seemed to point more and more to Sans being a lot smarter than he let on.

You reached for a heavily annotated text book and took it out, opening it as you headed for Papyrus’ bed. However, you nearly tripped over some random skateboard that was in between the bookshelf and bed. How had you not noticed it before? With a sigh of relief, you stepped over it and sat at the foot of the bed with the book in your hands.

All of the annotations you immediately saw made little to no sense to you. A lot of the highlighted passages also hurt your brain, they were just too advanced by your standards. However, as you turned the page more, you felt a low, uneasy feeling fill you. There were some sticky notes that simply said ‘no’ for the entire page, as if he chose to entirely disregard anything said there. Other’s had little positive remarks, as if he had to motivate himself to keep going; phrases like ‘do it for them’ and ‘he depends on you’. Was he referring to his friends and Papyrus? Most likely.

Or maybe he was talking about that Gaster guy?

Your thoughts were entirely interrupted by the return of Papyrus, who was smiling as he shut the door, up until he saw what you were holding.

“Oh! No, no, no, human! Sans told me not to ever touch his books!” Papyrus rushed on over in between the the bookshelf and the bed. He genuinely looked concerned. Slowly, eyes unblinking, you shut the book and set it to the side, judging Papyrus’ reaction. “Here! I’ll just put it back where it---” Papyrus tripped over his own cool-guy skateboard and went flying forward.

On top of you was where he landed.

You had been pushed back to where you were lying down, with the skeleton collapsed on top of you, and as he lifted himself up, you were only a couple inches from his face. Your own face must have been entirely red, or so it felt like, but neither of you moved for what felt like an eternity. That was, until the door opened again.

You glanced to the left and saw Sans staring, his mouth turned downwards. You had never seen him frown before this. Why was your life plagued with embarrassment?!

“Whoops.” Was all he said as he slowly began to close the door. You weren’t sure, definitely no where near positive, but you thought you maybe saw him glance at the book you had left on the bed. That wasn’t the issue right then, however.

“Papyrus. Can you please get off of me.” You tried to sound calm, because clearly Papyrus was confused as all heck. He complied instantly, looking incredibly shy as he put the book away. He didn’t even look at you.

“I, uh, should explain to him, shouldn’t I?” Papyrus chuckled quietly and left his own room in a rush. What a day.

You left soon after, turning off the light and closing the door behind you as you stepped out into the hall. The second floor was once again empty. You could hear discussion from the floor below and you knew exactly what you were in for. Regardless, you mustered up some courage and headed down the steps.

“Way to go, Paps! You really went for it!” Undyne cheered, slapping the skeleton on the back and nearly knocking him over.

“I didn’t go for anything!” He insisted. “Also what does that mean?”

Alphys noticed your arrival and started to giggle, but you didn’t pay too much mind to that, since really you were curious about how Papyrus and Sans were doing since they were actually there. Papyrus appeared to be flustered beyond all belief, but mostly was just confused. Sans seemed level headed and had reverted back to his grin. Were you maybe just seeing things earlier? You thought he had no ability to frown…

“Well if it ain’t the stud muffin themselves!” Undyne gestured towards you and you could tell this was still going to be a rather long night.


	18. Game On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more update for tonight cause tomorrow I wanna work on a couple commissions (they are also Undertale so look out for thoseee)  
> And number two: I will be live streaming some Undertale on twitch! So far the plan in Friday at 12pm Arizona time, but if there's someone who's super bummed about that and can't make it? Let me know, cause I'm trying to like, find a good time for everyone, but tbh I'd like to stream when I'm home alone, and I'll be going for quite a long time, just with some breaks and stuff, so hopefully everyone who is interested can make it to at least some part!
> 
> Anywayyy, on to the chapter!

After only a few more minutes of general teasing, Undyne let up, ruffling your hair. You weren’t exactly in the kidding around mood.

“Aw, lighten up. We know Paps is too innocent for that crap.” She grinned widely at you, but you still felt a bit flustered at all the nonsense. Everything was quickly put aside as you all moved on to the matter at hands. Video games. You hadn’t paid much mind to what game systems the brother’s had the last couple of times you were there, but now you noted they were a Wii and Xbox 360. Clearly the staple of any household.

“Okay! Let’s play some Smashhhh!” Undyne was pumped up, already setting everything up as if it was her own home. From the sounds of it, she was over a lot, though. Alphys sat down on the floor in front of the couch, legs criss-crossed and beaming at her significant other. Undyne began wildly tossing controllers at everyone, until there was one left and you and Sans didn’t have one. “Which of you’s gonna sit out?”

“I don’t mind.” You were being honest, besides, it was better to watch from afar and see your opponents strategies first. Sans caught the controller sent his way and sat down at his usual spot on the couch. You took the middle seat again, but this time sat a bit closer to Papyrus as to not have another awkward moment with Sans. Then again… you just had an awkward moment with Papyrus so…

You tried to be discreet in your shifting over, but it took awhile to be somewhere exactly in the middle. Finally you settled down with a small, triumphant smile. Awkward situation avoided! Except Sans had noticed, and was looking at you. That was, of course, until you glanced at him, and then his eyes were straight ahead. They were all on the character selection screen.

“Okay, punks! Five stock, no time, no items, let’s see what yer made of!” Undyne clearly took this game very seriously. She was player one and you watched as her cursor landed on Bowser.

Alphys, as player two, chose R.O.B. and you were not surprised in the slightest. She was a scientist after all. Papyrus, the third player, selected Luigi and giggled. You weren’t sure why, but it was kind of cute. Then it was left to Sans, who took his sweet time as per usual. Finally, he picked Kirby, the black and white one, obviously.

The match started and Undyne was already slamming on the buttons. Alphys took a meeker approach, hanging back and using her top to attack the others. Papyrus just… taunted. Over and over again.

Sans, however, was dodging around, avoiding all of Undyne’s hits.

“Stay still!!!”

“Hmm… nah.” You saw Sans wink, fingers moving quickly as he expertly snuck up behind Undyne and combo’d her to death. She flew off stage, Bowser screaming in agony much like she was doing in real life. This kind of thing happened again and again, with Sans taking out Alphys and Undyne a number of times, until Undyne whispered to Alphys and the two of them brutally KO’d Papyrus.

“That was so mean!” Papyrus looked rather disappointed and you just wanted to hug him. Sans, on the other hand, only seemed to get harder to beat, until he had finished off Undyne and Alphys’ characters.

Undyne was speechless, jaw nearly on the floor.

Now it was just Sans and Papyrus: Kirby versus Luigi.

“Whoops.” Sans used his rock form right over nothing and fell to his dead. “Aw, shoot.” He ran off the edge. “Aren’t a numbskull?” He did his recovery move off of the stage. This happened twice more, until Luigi, or rather, Papyrus was named victor.

“I! I won!” He sounded like he was going to cry. “I mean! Of course I won! You were all too weak and fragile to defeat me! But maybe next time!”

“Sans. Play. A. Different. Character.” Undyne was gritting her teeth, but she forced another grin.

“Okay.” Sans didn’t seem against the idea at all. So, on character selection, he switched over to the Ice Climbers.

The match started up, with Undyne rather hopeful, but soon her hopes were dashed away. She was crushed, again, and Papyrus stole(?) victory. Undyne stood up, yanking the controller out of Sans’ hands and shoving them into your own. You just kinda accepted it since the skeleton didn’t even flinch.

“Papyrus! Actually fight or something. PLEASE.” You had never seen her this angry, but it was a good chance to imagine what she would have been like as the head of the Royal Guard. Intimidating, was one word. Scary, was another. You wondered if she had killed anyone… whether she had or not didn’t really matter, though, did it? She would have just been doing her job.

You selected your favorite character and began putting up a decent fight, but you knew Alphys and Undyne were teaming up against both you and Papyrus. It… wasn’t going so well. In fact, within the first couple minutes, you lost all your stock and were forced to wait for everyone else to duke it out. That was when you noticed Sans had disappeared from the couch. Had he gone to the garage?

Since you had nothing better to do, you saw this as an opportunity to finally confront Sans about all this mystery. Was it gonna go over well? Heck no, but it was worth a shot. You stood from the couch and made your way over to the kitchen only to find that Sans was right there, sitting at the table. He looked up upon your entrance.

“Heya, pal. Did ya get dunked on?” Sans still managed to seem distant, even when joking around with you.

“Kinda. Yeah.” You nervously leaned against the counter, face probably more stern than you intended it to be. He picked up on this.

“So, have you figured it out yet? Judging by your expression, I’d say that’s the look of someone who’s still really confused. Maybe even more confused than you started out. Am I right?” You didn’t respond, he somehow made you even more nervous and you couldn’t collect your thoughts quick enough. “Guess I am.”

“All the textbooks… the writings in the garage… what does it mean?” You purposely kept your voice low, even though Undyne was shouting enough obscenities to cover any conversation.

“You can’t understand.” You were fed up with hearing that.

“Tell me why then, at least. Why can’t I understand?”

“You weren’t there. You didn’t see. You’re trying to put yourself into this situation where you have even less control than me.” He paused, looking down at the table. “And that’s saying something, pal.”

He was being more of an asshole than usual it felt like. There was an odd pressure in the room. Was he maybe upset about the whole Papyrus thing? You were spending an awful lot of time with the spaghetti loving skeleton, and definitely the more time you spent with him, the more distant Sans became. Was he really just like the stereotypical older brother, all protective of Papyrus?

“Look, I’m sorry about you walking in when Papyrus fell on me. But that was all it was, he fell. I didn’t mean to upset you, but---”

“Upset me?” He looked back to you, and as you blinked, he was suddenly much closer. Like, toe touching close again. “What, did you think I was... jealous?” The way he grinned at you was not a buddy-bud kind of way. In fact, it felt more… you didn’t have a word to describe it in that moment, your mind wasn’t exactly doing its best to work properly. Sans took another step closer.

“Sans, I---” You tried speaking again, but a shout from the other room drew your attention away.

“SANS! PUNK! GET IN HERE.”

Sans looked back up at you, and for a moment, gave the most sincere gaze you had seen in awhile.

“It’s a work in progress. But if I don’t finish before it’s… time’s up, then…” Another pause. “You’ve made things here a lot better than last time.”

“What…” You narrowed your eyes in vast confusion.

“Maybe, though… that was pointless of me to say.” He took a step back and began to leave. “I guess either way it would have been.”


	19. Puzzle Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanna watch me stream Undertale? Well it's happening!  
> This Friday, October 16th, 12pm Arizona time on Twitch, I'll be doing a Pacifist playthrough and spewing funfacts left and right! Also maybe answering questions if you guys have any? Hope to see you there!  
> http://Twitch.tv/cynicalghostie
> 
> Whoops sorry, this has a little bit of angst, but at least it's longer than usual!

After that night, that moment in the kitchen, Sans began to act differently towards you. He was less distant, more straightforward, but never spoke about anything even remotely involving the mysteries that seemingly surrounded him. And seeing how ‘great’ your first confrontation with him went, you decided it was best to no longer pry into his life. You had school, life, a number of other things to preoccupy you. Yet, there you were, Wednesday morning in your class, staring straight ahead, but thinking about some skeleton.

He wasn’t just some skeleton anymore, neither was Papyrus. They meant a whole lot to you, especially seeing as they were your only friends in town. Not like you were a social butterfly at school.

How could you be? You were far too caught up in your new monster-filled social life that somehow managed to confuse and baffle you. It was time you put more pieces together. As soon as your last class was dismissed, you went straight home, opened up your fridge, and heated up whatever leftover take out food you had. Puzzle solving food. Nah, that would have been Papyrus’ spaghetti. Admittedly, you didn’t want any of that at the moment.

Grabbing the whiteboard from its usual area, you laid it down on the floor in front of you. Truthfully, there may have been no more clues to gather, so you needed a theory. Or would that have been a hypothesis? It didn’t matter.

You carefully replayed Sans’ words in your head, looking for some kind of connection to all of the writing in the garage and the books in Papyrus’ room. All the equations and calculations, the text books on physics and time travel---

Time.

Time factored into all of this, didn’t it? The mention of ‘Time’s up’ and ‘better than last time’ all said within quick succession. His total disregard for giving a crap, just living life in the moment. How he never spoke about the past. Everything cryptic he had ever said to you… but that still wasn’t an explanation.

What did he know about that no one else knew… or could know?

A shiver went down your spine and you felt a certain uneasiness settle into the room. Were you maybe over thinking this? No. You couldn’t be. There was something seriously wrong going on and as he had told you a number of times: You didn’t understand.

Thoroughly freaked out, you pushed the whiteboard away and went to your bed to fall asleep listening to some youtube. You could worry about that all later. Right?

***

Thursday arrived quickly and as lunch time rolled around, so did Papyrus. Literally. He rode his skateboard to meet you. With a snort, you waved at him as he came into view. He nearly didn’t stop in time, but soon regained his balance and managed to stick a landing that at least earned a six in your opinion.

“Are you ready, human, for the single most exceptional picnicking experience of your fragile life?” You would have asked why he said fragile, but you figured he was just trying to spice up the dialogue a bit more. Typical, but adorable, Papyrus. You nodded and the two of you headed off to a somewhat familiar area. It was the park that Undyne had shown you not too far back.

“Did Undyne show you this?” You wondered aloud. The area was still kept tidy, and this time the bird bath was full. Someone was definitely visiting enough to straighten up.

“Indeed! She brought me here and said! Papyrus! As Head of the Royal Guard and still your superior! I want you to watch here and tell me who else comes by!” He tried to imitate her voice, but it was rather… off. “I, of course, being the great and loyal skeleton I am, agreed. But then she told me she had been kidding. It was rude.” He seemed to deflate after the retelling, but perked up right away as he noted a bird had been bathing itself in the bird bath.

It took you this long, however, to notice that neither of you thought to bring food. You couldn’t help but laugh, though Papyrus was confused for the solid minute that you couldn’t get a word out. The both of you fixed the situation quickly, though, by stopping off at some sandwich place on a pedestrian-only street on your way back. Papyrus ranted on about a number of things, complaining that Sans always ate out even when they lived in Snowdin. You enjoyed hearing tidbits of their lives. Sometimes, he would even talk about Undyne and Alphys and a few other monsters you hadn’t met yet.

“Whenever he was too lazy to work he would just go out into the woods and boondoggle away! At least I hardly needed his help to capture a human!” Somehow his cape billowed in the wind. “Too bad I never officially sent them to the capital myself or I would have finally received the promotion I so utterly deserved. I would have had friends finally!”

“You have friends now.” You pointed out with a soft smile. Papyrus looked a bit shocked for a moment, but then returned to his usual grin.

“I do, don’t I?” You wondered how lonely he had been before…

It was kind of ironic… in a world of monsters, all equal and yet different, a place he was accepted, he had no friends. Above ground, where he was seen as lesser, Papyrus had everything he had ever wanted. Struggles really managed to bring people together.

“Are you still available for another adventure this weekend?” Papyrus asked as the two of you readied to part ways for the day.

“Yep, I am.” You answered, leaving out the ‘of course’. The weekend hang outs became something you deeply looked forward to; there was no way you would miss out.

“Ah, wonderful! I shall call you with the deets later! Good bye for now, friend!” Papyrus always looked reluctant to leave and it usually took your turning around for him to make a step in any direction. To be completely honest, you were always reluctant to leave as well.

***

Friday. End of the week. Your classes were moving along at what felt to be a snail’s pace that day and you were more than happy to get out of there at the end. Besides, you had to get some energy for the weekend, which was bound to be filled wit some kind of fun activity that Papyrus put together. Or in the case of last weekend, that Unydne made him put together. She really was around quite a bit, wasn’t she?

You made it to your apartment door with a small huff of triumph. It was good to be done with the week, after all. You opened up the door and stepped inside, ready to drop off your stuff when---

Knock Knock.

You were just in the hallway… it was completely empty.

With a furrowed brow, you opened up the door to see Sans, large grin and all.

“Heya, pal.” He greeted, tilting his head in a prompting manner. “Can I come in?” You were speechless, so you simply stepped aside and watched as he entered your apartment. It took you a second to gather up your thoughts, but when you did!!! It still didn’t amount to much.

“What…?” Was all you could manage. Sans seemed to completely ignore your unfinished question and just continued to look around.

“Papyrus hasn’t been in here yet, has he?” Way to dodge the question.

“Um… no.” There was no point in lying, so you just played along in hopes that’d he reveal his reason for visiting.

“Only me?” Why on earth was he seemingly hung up on that?

“So far.” He seemed to smirk at your response. Admittedly, you were becoming a bit fed up with his back and forth nature.

“I don’t let many people into my room, either.” Sans hopped up on a stool you had set up near your counter, facing away from you. Practically defeated, you decided to go along with your usual routine and walked around into the kitchen area to make yourself some kind of dinner. Sans watched your movements carefully.

There was long silence between the two of you as the microwave softly hummed in the background. It was was certainly awkward, but now the tables had flipped; you were ignoring him. You wondered if he noticed.

“Papyrus came into my room last night, pretending to look for something. He’s not the kind to be open about his feelings right away. After awhile of lazily looking around my room, he stopped and sat on my floor. That was weird already. He hates how I never vacuum.” At that point, you simply had to pay attention. It wasn’t all that often that he spoke up like this. You hung on every word he said. “He’s a cleaning fanatic. Anyway, he sat down and started to stare at my wall. So, I asked him what was wrong, right? He tried to tell me nothing was wrong, so I let him sit longer. After a bit, he said he was having some complex feelings. I asked him what kind, yeah? Said the complex kind.” Sans began to look down at the counter, hands still in his pockets.

“Sans…?” He had gone quiet again, so you wondered if he had fallen into deep thought.

“Then he just left. When I went to read him his usual bedtime story, he pretended he never said anything. Weird, right?”

You weren’t sure if you were supposed to respond, but you nodded anyway.

“If he tells you anything… let me know, alright?” Was Sans trusting you right then? Even further than that, did he somehow think you and Papyrus were closer than he was to his brother?

“Yeah, sure.” You doubted Papyrus would open up to you about anything, but still, you had to promise.

“By the way, we’ll be going to that amusement park in town. See ya tomorrow night.” With that, Sans got down from the stool and stopped only briefly, looking at the whiteboard you had accidentally left out. He chuckled lightly, but continued on as if he saw nothing. You knew, though. “Oh, and… I hope you stick around awhile. Kay? See ya.”

The door shut and you found yourself alone and exhausted.


	20. Winky Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last notice that I'll be Livestreaming Undertale Today, October 16th, 12pm Arizona time here at my twitch!  
> Twitch.TV/CynicalGhostie  
> Really hope to see you guys there <333
> 
> This chapter is a tiny bit longer, just cause I wanted to make it kinda special for the 20th chapter and all!  
> Also! You guys are amazing, I can't believe I passed 500 kudos and 10k hits?! That's astounding, better than any fic I have EVER written  
> Thank you so much, you all mean the world to me :'D

You woke up the next day, staring at your ceiling in a dazed manner. What exactly was your life becoming? The question continued to push its way into your head until finally you sat up, blankets bunching around your body. It didn’t have an answer yet, but you still felt the need to supply answers to every single question. As you continued on this path, however, questions became the most abundant part of your life. It was as if you had been digging for clues this entire time, only to find more mystery.

Oh wait.

That was exactly correct.

You groaned, getting out of bed and opening up your laptop to play some video while you did work around the place. There was a lot of time to kill, after all. In the middle of the night, Papyrus had sent you a text explaining that you all were meeting around five. There was pizza promised. Glancing at a clock, you noted it was only ten. On the bright side (arguably) you could finally have gotten to work on that project you had meant to start awhile back.

Hours ticked by, full of a number of your favorite and least favorite activities, until suddenly, you realized it was past four, and you had to get going if you were going to get public transportation there. It wasn’t like you had the money for a cab everywhere.

***

For what felt like the millionth time, you stood outside the home of Sans and Papyrus. This time, however, it was already getting dark, and you didn’t want to linger outside for so long. You approached the door and knocked, greeted within a moment by Alphys, who smiled nervously.

“H-Hey! You made it!” Had she assumed you wouldn’t? She stepped aside and you entered the home, immediately noting that everyone seemed to be in the kitchen. “Pizza should, uh… be here… soon…” She trailed off, probably in response to the fact that you hadn’t been looking at her. You turned your head and nodded with a small smile. That seemed to perk her up again.

Following behind the scientist, you walked into the kitchen and took in the sight. Papyrus was, for some reason, pouting in the corner with the trash can over his head. To your left, leaning up against the counter, was Undyne who was laughing quite a bit, especially upon your arrival. Sans simply was sat at the table, looking a bit indifferent to the happenings around him. Needless to say, you were perplexed beyond belief.

“OH MAN, YOU REALLY MISSED OUT!!!” Undyne slapped her knee, much like you would see in an old cartoon, and burst out laughing again. You awkwardly glanced at Alphys as if she would have an answer, but she merely shrugged.

“You didn’t miss much, pal.” Sans suddenly spoke up from the table. His eyes landed on Undye, who seemed to calm down a tiny bit.

“Eh, it WAS kind of a in-the-moment gag, ya know?” Her reaction switched quickly at Sans’ gaze. So if he could make YOU speechless… then he made Undyne quieter? Kinda? Who knew.

Papyrus peeked out from under the trash can, frowning. You carefully approached him, taking the can off his head entirely.

“You alright, Papyrus?” You wanted to check on him for sure, he probably wasn’t having as much fun as Undyne was having. Upon your words, Papyrus seemed to force himself to cheer up, looking at you with kind eyes. (How did he even manage that?).

“Of course! What do you take me for? A… a crybaby?” He stood and suddenly posed in a triumphant manner. Behind you, you could hear Undyne’s snickering.

After another couple minutes of Papyrus’ pep talk to himself, pizza had arrived and all of you gathered around the kitchen, enjoying the meal. Alphys made sure to inform you beforehand that it was monster pizza, so you kept that in mind. And as every time before, you never caught a glimpse of Sans actually EATING his food. It was merely there one moment and gone the next. Cryptic son of a bitch.

When you all had finished, Undyne stood, slammed her plate down, completely tipping the table over, and grinned.

“ROLLERCOASTER TIME!” She cheered, latching on to Alphys. “Babe!!! Let’s do everything there is there! And then, like, barf a bunch!”

“I was, uh, with you up to there…” Alphys shyly admitted.

“It’s okay, sweetie, I’ll do enough upchucking for the both of us!”

Internally you shouted ‘Undyne. no’.

Everyone piled in the car, the same positions as the previous weekend, with Undyne apparently getting lost right away. Alphys was luckily a good navigator (was that a pun?) and got you all there without too much delay. The lights up ahead were gorgeous to you, on the outskirts of town where there weren’t as many tall buildings blocking the sky. A large ferris wheel in the distance practically called for you. The view was probably amazing from up there. Kind of frightening, sure, but mostly amazing.

Papyrus nearly squeed with glee as he exited the vehicle and did a small dance of excitement.

“I have never been to this human festivity! It’s so bright and colorful!!!” His enthusiasm was bursting at the seams.

“Let’s get inside then!” Undyne had hopped out of her side, equally excited, but in a far less… innocent way. Alphys was just about swooning from her own side, however. They pretty much were made for each other.

“Hey, still with us here, buddy?” Sans was side eyeing you with mock-concern. You frowned instinctively and left through the right of the car.

With everyone else, you walked to the ticket booth and paid for entry. As you went to hand the attendant your payment, however, Sans cut ahead and slid some money on the counter before you could.

“Don’t worry about it, I got ya.” He was actually paying for you? Was that his way of making up for all the unearned tips he took? You felt weird thinking about working with him at the Nice Cream stall; it had been such a long time ago, but really no time at all. It was only a little bit more than midway through September, but still…

Things had really changed since then.

Realizing you hadn’t spoken up and were just kind of standing there, you quickly blurted out a thank you and took your ticket, awkwardly catching up with the others while Sans got his own. You could’ve sworn he chuckled at your reaction.

Upon entering the large amusement park, you were nearly overwhelmed with all of the lights, sounds, and booths with fun games. Most of them were probably rigged, but that didn’t matter all that much to you. Everything was just for fun, right?

“Welp, catch you losers later, Alphys and I are gonna ditch ya for some real THRILL rides!” Undyne looked so ready to puke her guts out, Alphys on the other hand, was getting a head start on that nausea just by freaking out. “Just kidding, we’re going to the tunnel of love! Adiosss!” With a sigh of relief, Alphys took her girlfriend’s hand and walked with her.

“Tunnel of love? What’s that, Sans?” Papyrus looked down at his brother is wonderment. Sans shrugged weakly.

“S’for people who love each other.” He put it simply.

“I love you guys, why don’t we go ride it?!” Papyrus clearly wasn’t that well versed in much of anything to do with romance, despite what he had bragged about way back when.

“M-Maybe later, Paps. Undyne and Alphys probably want to be alone.” You tried to explain delicately. The last thing you wanted was to upset Papyrus. For the millionth time.

“Oh. I see.” He deflated instantly, to your disappointment. You had an idea, though.

“How about I win you that stuffed animal for now?” You pointed to a large Penguin that was a prize at some Game Stall. Papyrus’ eyes practically lit up at the offer, and he nodded vigorously. You chuckled at his eagerness.

With the two skeletons behind you, you came up on the stall and slapped down a dollar, pretending to be all tough. While Papyrus found it amusing, the guy behind the counter just snickered at you and handed you three balls. The object was to knock everything down, you had seen this in television and movies all the time. You rolled your shoulders and readied yourself, only to fail on the first try. Second try, too. In fact, you failed third one as well. Just as you were about to apologize to Papyrus, Sans placed a dollar on the counter and looked up at you.

“You should try again.” Sans was staring at you kind of strangely, as if he had something up his sleeve. Other than bones, obviously. Shrugging, you accept the first ball and with a deep breath, you threw it. Miraculously, it knocked over the first set of bottles. “That’s what happens when you really put your… backbone into it!” Sans called from behind you.

“You can do it, Human! I believe in you!” Papyrus began cheering excitedly.

Grabbing another ball, you mustered up your strength and launched it, completely wrecking the second set. With more encouragement from the skeletons, you reached for the final ball and dramatically stared down the final set of bottles. It was all up to this. If you failed, Papyrus would be crushed and you couldn’t have faced him ever again. There was no turning back.

One last throw. You let go of the ball and it went flying, demolishing the final set, but this time you thought you saw something strange. turning on your heel, you looked back to see an elated Papyrus, and even further behind him, Sans. Whose left eye appeared to be blue for a moment. He shyly grinned, winking that same left eye for the blue energy to have suddenly vanished. Had he been helping you? Were you a cheater?!

The man behind the counter handed you the penguin, which in turn, you gave to Papyrus.

“Sans! Look! It’s fat, just like you!”

“I told ya, Papyrus, I’m just big boned.”


	21. Compare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terribly sorry it's been so long! Had so many other things to do, commissions included in my everyday life stuff. But hey, back to your regularly scheduled Amusement Park
> 
> Thinking of Live Streaming more Pacifist run Undertale on Wednesday AND Friday, 12pm Arizona time  
> (My twitch is Twitch.TV/CynicalGhostie)  
> Would you guys be down for Wednesday? And don't worry if you miss these future streams, they'll now be archived on my twitch for you to view any time you want!

The rest of the evening, Papyrus held onto that penguin as i it was going to disappear at any second. It was kind of adorable how protective he was of something you (and to some extent, Sans) got him, but at the same time, you wondered if he cared perhaps… too much. There was probably no such thing in that case, however. After all, Papyrus was simply a bit of a kid at heart.

“Say, Sans…” The both of you were simply following Papyrus around as he eagerly looked at everything that remotely piqued his interest. “Which of you is older?” You asked, the shorter skeleton snorting.

“Why the sudden question, hm?” He began to side eye you.

“Just curious.” How had he not figured out you were a very curious person? Jeez, where had this guy been these last few weeks.

“I don’t really recall, pal.” Sans responded with a weak shrug, but you could have sworn for a moment you saw his eyes narrow. Perhaps you were reading too far into his expressions. The walk continued on in silence, despite the rumbling of the crowd around the area.

Papyrus eventually concluded his rounds with all of the stalls in the small section of the amusement park, coming to a halt and spinning around on his heels.

“Human!!! What is THAT?!” Papyrus was frantically trying to point behind himself. You leaned to one side, trying to figure out what he had wanted, but you didn’t exactly understand until you looked up. The Ferris Wheel, all lit up with people way up in the air.

“That’s the ferris wheel.” You were simple in your explanation, hoping his own curiosity would lead him to want a ride on it.

“Ferris… wheel… I desire a demonstration!” Well that plan worked. Glancing back at Sans, you saw him shrug, conveying his willingness to participate. So, the three of you went to wait in the surprisingly short line. Papyrus bounced up and down like a giddy child, all hopped up on carnival sugar. You briefly wondered what Undyne and Alphys were up to.

A part of you worried that Alphys couldn’t handle the evening along with her hyper active, thrill-seeking girlfriend. Then again, if they worked out as well as they always appeared to be doing, then you imagined Undyne knew when the scientist wasn’t feeling so hot. You would see for yourself later.

The line shortened again, and as you approached, the human manning the gate eyed you oddly. Probably because Papyrus and Sans weren’t very… expected. Still, he managed to do his job and explained a few things before letting you through.

“Oh, and, two per cart, no exception.”

Just as you were about to volunteer for some good ol alone time, Papyrus’ arm shot up while the other had the penguin tucked under it.

“I, the Great Papyrus, sacrifice myself for the good of this evening! Besides! I have my own little Sansy right here.” The penguin was held up in the air as the skeleton beamed at it. Also: Sansy?

With the roll of his eyes (pupil things), Sans motioned for his brother to go first, and almost seemingly… lectured him.

“-arms and legs. Both. All four. Keep them in the cart. See ya soon, bro.” Papyrus nodded vigorously along, until up and away he began to go. It was another short moment before you and Sans got into your own cart. It felt awkward, to say the least.

Much like the couch moment back during movie night, the two of you were touching shoulders, with Sans far more relaxed. Or so you imagined, that was. At that point in time, you weren’t even looking at him, just out to your left as the wheel began to move once more. The cart moved up and up, off the ground maybe only 15 feet before it had to stop again as people unloaded and loaded at the base. You could easily see them.

Again, up the cart moved until it was 30 feet high, at least. You looked out and could see all of the amusement park, some parts better than others. At the same time, you felt Sans’ eyes on you, but didn’t care nearly as much when the Ferris Wheel moved once more. The view was amazing and you hadn’t even reached the top.

“When Papyrus and I were young… we went to the Wishing Room.” Sans was speaking. You turned quickly to find him leaning forward, staring off at the nothingness that was the outskirts of town. “An entire room… just for wishes. The stones in the ceiling looked like stars, all glittering and white.”

The two of you reached the top of the wheel. Everything was quiet, so far from the amusement park that there was no rumble of the crowd, no whirring of machines, no dirt crunched beneath feet. Life was still… silent. Sans continued.

“But real stars… well… they’re something else.” You had been hoping he was going to talk about the wishes themselves more, but the way he looked up at the sky, like he had been waiting for it his whole life, like that was the most meaningful moment in his life…

It broke your heart.

“There’s a lot to get tired of in this world… and I’m always bone tired… but I can’t see this view enough.” Sans glanced at you, but quickly was looking away once more. The wheel began its descent, with you watching Sans, the way he breathed in deeply and exhaled shakily. You were glad he opened up to you, even if it was small. It meant something to him.

Eventually, the cart hit the bottom, and you and Sans left to be greeted by the all too enamored with everything Papyrus. The three of you began to walk again, until Papyrus needed to use the restroom (for some reason?) and Sans went to make sure he wasn’t going to do… something?? They really were quite the mystery.

“Hey punk!!! There you are!” Undyne and Alphys came into view, the latter carrying some cotton candy. “Where the skelebros at? Did you know who catch my hint?”

“Uh, they went to the bathroom and, uh… what?” You had no idea what she was talking about with that second question.

“Ya know, the hint I dropped. Tunnel of Love. Did he not take you?!” She looked positively shocked, her mouth forming the perfect ‘o’.

“No? Who?” You furrowed your brows and waited for the answer.

“Papryus of course” “Sans of course.”

Alphys and Undyne paused, looking at each other for a moment.

“Sans?! That bonehead? Babe, I thought we were on the same page here!” The fish monster crossed her arms over her chest and pouted.

“Pfftt! Papyrus? N-No way! Sans is all… uh.... cool and, like, mysterious! He’s obviously the, ya know… love… interest.” Alphys argued back, though not as confidently as her significant other.

Wait a second. Were they really insinuating what you thought they were? That either or maybe even both of the skeletons had interest in you? No. That was just absurd, they clearly were just reading really far into things. But hey! That was your job! Just… in different context was all.

“Ya know what, it doesn’t even matter! Cause neither of them made a move anyway! What a bunch of losers!” You were suddenly dragged back into the conversation at hand.

“Yeah… not very anime of them… heh! Heh…”

Somehow they had managed to make up within the blink of an eye, simply accepting that neither skeleton was all that romantic. A couple more minutes passed before Paps and Sans returned and all of you agreed it had gotten rather late.

As you all left, everyone was joking and messing around, and as one of the jokes was made, Sans began to laugh uncontrollably, firmly placing a hand on your arm to stabilize himself. Papyrus, to your left, nearly fell on top of you completely and you struggled to keep him up and to stop laughing yourself.

All in all, you loved these goofs.


	22. Reminisce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short little chapter filled with cute hang out ideas I couldn't see myself writing an entire chapter about, sadly ;o;
> 
> Thanks so much everyone who came to yesterday's stream! Hope to see some of you at least tomorrow!  
> Same time: 12pm Arizona time, more info on my profile page!

After that, time began to move quickly, September passing by in a blur. Not to say that the events that had happened weren’t memorable or something, just that there were so many things that took place, you couldn’t keep track of every minor detail. The fact of the matter was that these monsters were becoming your best friends, people whom you trusted and valued. Alphys always spoke of inventions she thought to make, and of that entertainment robot, Mettaton, whom you had seen on television. Undyne would talk about her childhood, training under Asgore. Papyrus rambled on and on about puzzles, food, and that human named Frisk. And Sans… well… he didn’t talk much.

There had been on evening that you were staying over, in Papyrus’ room on his bed while he slept on the floor. You had woken up feeling hungry and it had to have been some time in the early morning, before the sun had even risen. While rubbing at your eyes, you quietly headed down stairs, noting the sleeping Alphys and Undyne snuggled up on the couch. They were rather adorable. Keeping that in mind, you tried to remain quiet as you went for the kitchen. As you got there, it came as a shock to see Sans, just there at the table with what you knew now was his ‘work’ in front of him.

Upon your arrival, he looked up at you, with what was undoubtedly a sad, and very tired smile. You felt your heart drop for a moment. How long had he been up? Everyone had said goodnight and Sans HAD went to his room, right? You approached cautiously.

“Sup, pal?” Was all he asked, rolling up the paper he had been writing on. You furrowed your brows.

“What are you doing up?” You asked, completely forgetting the food you had initially come down for.

“Have ya ever had… deja vu?” He was staring you down, so you just nodded slowly. “Have ya ever had it for your entire life… just to stop? And then start again?” You shook your head no. “Well… buddy. I’m waiting for it to start.”

You hardly remembered what happened after that. All you knew was that Sans continued to pretend nothing was wrong, just ignored the issue at hand. And you never got a snack.

Sans wasn’t always that serious, however, as you had seen when the five of you went to laser tag one friday evening. Needless to say, you expected a fun evening, but soon found yourself hiding in the corner of the arena, praying that no one found you. Even Papyrus became relentless, using bones to trap his target, and Undyne typically was throwing magical spears everywhere that scared the shit out of you. Alphys had some sort of laser gun that you would see shot in the distance. You couldn’t imagine how that felt.

At some point in time, you nearly jumped ten feet when Sans was suddenly beside you.

“Jeez! Don’t sneak up on me like that!” You complained with a pout. Sans just snickered, leaning back against the wall you had hid yourself near.

“This is all pretty hectic, isn’t it?” He asked, eyes closed and his gun set down next to him. “I’m surprised you agreed to this.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect this.” You admitted, though you probably should have figured it would turn out this way.

“Papyrus and Undyne are usually pretty competitive. Alphys just wants to impress Undyne. But you? You can’t seem to bring yourself to enter the battle.” He noted, standing up again as you watched him with a confused expression. “Anyway, I should keep moving.” He shot you with his gun and wandered off at a snail’s pace. You were too stunned to move. Sans had won that evening.

He was right, though, Papyrus was always competitive. That was something you saw time and time again, but it was mainly a competitive nature with Undyne, who was almost always the victor. So when Alphys suggested Twister one night, the two were all for it. Now twister was an interesting game to play when you decided to play with monsters.

“NGAHHHH!!!” Undyne shouted as she forcefully slammed her foot down on yellow. It was only the first turn. Sans had decided to sit the game out and simply spin the wheel for everyone, calmly shouting out the colors and body parts. Alphys lost very early on, unable to make her body stretch, seeing as she was just about the shortest one there.

“D-Darn it.” She muttered, sitting down next to Sans. It was just you, Undyne, and Papyrus left, and the monsters didn’t seem to be in the losing mood. You practically could hear some intense anime theme playing in the distance every time Undyne went to place her body part somewhere. She elbowed the mat, kicked it firmly, and smacked her hand down decisively. Papyrus wasn’t even breaking a sweat, he was so damn flexible. Probably since his bones worked in such an… odd way. You were actually getting very lucky, all of your spots were close by to each other, but somehow you had Papyrus’ body completely over your own. It felt awkward.

But not quite as awkward as the last time.

Needless to say, you eventual toppled over, leaving just Undyne and Papyrus. Not even a minute later, Undyne fell over and Papyrus was titled the winner.

“URGHHH! No! I demand a rematch!”

The two of them kept going for the rest of the evening, Undyne winning some and Papyrus winning the rest.

You glanced at the calendar to your left, after reminiscing for what felt like a good ten minutes. October 12th. It had been just about a month since you had been to the Amusement Park with all of them and rode the Ferris Wheel with Sans and to some extent, Papyrus. Since then, both Undyne and Alphys continually tried to point out cues that either skeleton had feelings for you. Nothing really clicked, though.Everything they pointed out was just… gestures of friendship in your eyes. In fact, anything that could have been seen as romantic, was always when they weren’t around.

That was enough thinking for that morning, however. You had already taken up all of your morning youtube time. Getting up and ready for the day, you peered at the whiteboard shoved behind your dresser. There was a small message you hadn’t seen before, and you knew immediately it had to have been Sans. (How on earth was he quick enough to write anything down?)

All it said was ‘boo’. You rolled your eyes. What a bonehead.


	23. The Trick to Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-- is, not to get too attached to it"  
> When songs inspire! Though don't be fooled, this isn't an angst chapter  
> (Just wait til chapter 25, though)
> 
> I'm sorry for mentioning my live streaming so much but!  
> Friday, October 23rd (that's today as I post this) I'm streaming the Asgore and Flowey fight and maybe more??  
> 12pm Arizona time, Twitch.tv/cynicalghostie

The truth of the matter was that you were incredibly excited for the week to end. Papyrus and the others had planned a quick weekend camping experience, one that you were sure was going to be as great as everything else you had done with the others. Of course, that was what you always had expected, and of course, hoped. So far it hadn’t proved wrong, but… there was bound to be a bad day thrown in there somewhere, right? Or had you used all those up within the first week of knowing them?

Sans had gotten better. Much better. But you worried about him. It was hard not to with all the cryptic things he said, and the way he danced around certain subjects. As if he didn’t want you to know him better…

Papyrus filled in a number of gaps for you, he was just the kind of brother who couldn’t help talking about their sibling. After all, as you found, Sans was actually very interesting. You had already picked up on his love of science, but he also seemed to have some kind of teleportation power on top of that. Papyrus explained it wasn’t a power, however, it was more like finding glitches in space. Not like that had made much more sense to you. So, you stuck with magic powers, just to wrap your head around it.

Undyne admitted she noticed his teleporting before, going on to explain how he always managed to poof from one sentry post to the next.

Finally, you weren’t crazy, and he wasn’t some kind of ninja, he just appeared placed! Maybe that still sounded crazy. Regardless, it was nice learning about him when he seemed so reluctant to share. You constantly wondered why that was.

A strange instinct told you something big was bound to happen soon. The game would change.

***

Your week went by as per usual, as it did every week. You didn’t enjoy dwelling on school, and even with Papyrus and Undyne hanging out with you on certain days to break up the monotony, you still simply looked forward to the next adventure. This was what high school was supposed to be like, right? Just having fun with good friends.

You had been told only to bring some essentials, since it almost always turned out that Papyrus and Undyne had the rest of what was needed. Your poor college-kid bank account thanked them for that. It really seemed that Sans managed to make quite a bit of cash, although you still weren’t positive how. Just because he had all those jobs, didn’t mean his pay was all that good. Perhaps that was exactly why he worked so many? But then? And how? It hurt your brain.

Instead, you focused on your arrival, bright and early, to the usual skeleton home. Again, Undyne’s car was parked out front, with junk hanging off the roof and shoved in the back. She must have been quite the early riser. Or so you assumed.

You knocked on the door and for the first time ever, Sans opened it for you. He looked tired as all hell, even by skeleton standards. You thought of a pun but shoved it from your mind in order to not be rude.

“Morning.” You said quietly, noting the eerie hush that had fallen over the home. Sans let out a breathy chuckle and moved aside to let you in. With your small back pack of stuff slung over your shoulder, you entered inside and took a look around. Papyrus and Undyne were nowhere to be seen, and Alphys had fallen asleep on the couch. Seemed she wasn’t an early riser, either.

“Papyrus and Undyne went to the store. And you can see how Alphys’ doing.” Sans explained rather quickly. He probably wished he was napping as well. Did you wake him up? Either way, you just nodded in understanding and walked to the kitchen. “Hungry?” He was following you, which you kinda didn’t expect.

“Uh, yeah.” You hadn’t remembered to get any breakfast on the way over. Sans shuffled silently to the fridge you were about to open and began to reach far back in the bottom shelf. You didn’t even think anything was back there, but suddenly, he pulled out a half eaten pie and handed it to you.

“Made it last night, help yourself.” Sans baked?

Actually, now that you had thought back, Papyrus mentioned something about Sans using the oven on rare occasions. But baking? Seemed out of character to you. Then again, he did seem to enjoy his food quite a bit. You muttered a thank you and went for the rest of what you needed. At the end of it all, you were sitting across from Sans, a slice of pie on your plate. He was watching you, but it almost felt he was looking through you.

“It’s good.” You told him in a hushed tone, earning his attention once more. Sans kinda smirked and nodded, but didn’t say much. There was a time where you would have called this awkward, but the truth was… it just made you sad. It was obvious there was something on his mind, but there was no way he’d flat out tell you that. In fact, what he said next kinda threw you off guard.

“There’s a trick to life… that I’m not so great at.” After the words left his mouth, he immediately straightened up and returned to his usual self. “Sorry. Cryptic, huh? Guess I do belong in a crypt.” That was worse than his usual puns, but you chuckled anyway. What else were friends for? Sans seemed to appreciate the light hearted response. The clock ticked for another minute. A very pained and forced minute.

When Papyrus and Undyne finally came back, the latter woke Alphys and everyone piled into the car in their usual manner. You had wished you had a window to stare out of, but staring at your lap was basically just as good, right? Still, for once, you felt no eyes on you, like no one was paying any attention to you. And as you peered up, it proved true, Sans was looking in the opposite direction of you.

In the front seats, Undyne and Alphys struggled with directions, but as always, you knew they’d pull through. Papyrus, beside you, was eagerly rattling his bones, wearing some khakis and a shirt that simply said ‘camping’ with a cute little tree underneath it. He always had some kind of oddly fitting shirt.

It was about an hour later when you had made it outside of the city and to the more heavily wooded area. In the distance you saw the mountains, all tall and proud, but with its dark history. You quietly wondered why Papyrus and Sans decided to stay in a city that was only hours away from the underground. Or even Undyne and Alphys, really. Monsters spread out after the first couple years, but it seemed they decided not to…

“Undyne, why don’t we ever have music?” Papyrus suddenly questioned.

“Cause, you nerds would try to backseat DJ and all of your taste in music SUCKS.” Undyne loudly laughed, you could practically feel her grin from where you sat.

“Isn’t that one of those human euphemisms for ‘cool’? Because then I suck a lot!” You didn’t have the heart to speak up during the rest of the debate. No wonder Undyne avoided playing music.

Another good twenty minutes later, Undyne pulled into a small, but cute campsite with a fire pit in the center. Very quickly, you all got to work setting up, and that was when you noticed.

“There’s only two tents?” You asked, mostly to yourself, but loudly enough that Papyrus heard you.

“Yeah! Undyne and Alphys very much insisted on having their own! And when I say Undyne and Alphys insisted, I mean just Undyne! And when I say insisted, I mean Undyne noogied me into letting her!” Papyrus got very quiet near the end there. “But you get to stay with Sans and I!!! How much does THAT suck?” He looked so happy, you couldn’t help but smile back.

“They really do need their own space. Guess you could say their snuggling is pretty… in-tents.” However, when Sans looked proud, you just shook your head at him, still smiling anyway.

What else were friends for?


	24. Let the Leaves Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terribly sorry for the recent lack of updates. I was having trouble with a number of things, but mainly in remembering something I struggle with all the time.  
> I was doubting myself and my work, I was not putting myself first because I believed if I began to slow my pace that I was disappointing and failing my readers. This wasn't helped by the fact that I started receiving comments along the lines of "hurry up". While some may think that is a compliment, the truth is it gives me so much anxiety and again, instills doubt into me. I don't want those kind of comments, ever. It's one thing to say you're excited, but it's another to apply a certain force to the words and almost DEMAND more from me. This is not a call out kind of thing and I'm sure the commentors meant no harm by it, but still, it caused me to have a bit of a breakdown the other night.  
> I'm a good writer. I'm a good person. I find it hard to tell myself that sometimes. But there are so many of you that read my stories that are just the kindest people ever and it helps remind me that I'm doing well, that I am helping people and making them happy! But at the same time, I can't focus primarily and only on your happiness. I will be writing only when I am up to it. So if there are times when I am not updating, I apologize, but I will be putting myself first and my own mental health.
> 
> I'm sorry this got so long, but I suppose it was bound to happen haha  
> Anyway, onto the story! Next chapter will be a bigggg one, so I hope you all look forward to it!

After setting up everything you all needed to be comfortable, it grew dark and cold. The stars were so bright up above the trees, sparkling even more than on the ferris wheel ride. Or were you just misremembering? Either way, it was truly beautiful.

The moon was hidden away behind some mountains, only glowing faintly in the distance, to your disappointment. Perhaps you already needed a fire on the first night? At least the shrubbery and underbrush weren’t too dry anymore, so you hadn’t need to worry about spreading fire.

“Stand back, people, I got this.” Undyne rubbed her hands together and knelt in front of the fire pit, taking some kindling and a lighter out of her pocket. Why she carried the kindling around in her pocket, you would never understand. Placing down in the already assembled ring of rocks, Undyne started up the lighter and held it to the paper and logs. After a short minute, a spark happened and all the paper ignited, until it spread to the wood below. The fire was started.

“T-Too bad Toriel wasn’t here… that could have gone quicker and all… n-not to say your method was bad, Undyne!” Alphys quickly caught herself, smiling shyly. Undyne just noogied her head.

“Aw, babe!” What a couple.

Pulling out the chairs from Undyne’s car, everyone gathered around the fire and for a long while, you all just stared. It twisted and twirled up into the air, tiny sparks falling slowly to the ground, which amused the heck out of Papyrus. You adored the way he watched with equal amounts of wonderment each time. How could he be so continually fascinated? A particularly loud pop and fizzle from the flames caused you to look away from Papyrus and back towards the pit. Sans, who sat directly across from you on the other side, was eyeing you. He smirked, eyes shifting over to Papyrus and then back to you. Was he… mocking you? Teasing you?

You stuck your tongue out at him and went to stare at your feet instead. Just before your eyes left his face, however, you noted a very brief, but sudden change. When you braved another glance, it was gone. replaced by that grin you were slowly realizing wasn’t always real.

“OKAY! Story time, nerds!” Undyne cleared her throat, leaning forward enough to rest the palms of her hands on her knees. She lowered her head. Everyone else leaned closer as soon as they realized she was going to be whispering, but Alphys, who cowered in his chair.

“Seven years ago today, there was a family that lived not far from this spot. The mother and father and their son. I think.” Undyne paused, but soon shrugged and continued. “So anyway, they were--- the parents and junk, were really cruel and mean to their child and locked them away in the basement, feeding the human nothing but a watermelon every few days. For years, that child lived off of watermelon, until one day. Probably a year ago or something….” Again, she paused. “Anyway! The kid had eaten so much watermelon--- and the seeds! That was an important part, shit! They ate so much of that junk that they became this huge, ugly, mutated thing! And like, beat the crap out of their parents!!!”

Papyrus screeched, clutching his bone-knees. Undyne was laughing uncontrollably, slapping her own fish-knee. You weren’t sure why you specified it was a fish-knee. Seemed to work.

“P-Payrus? Why did you, uh… scream?” Alphys asked quietly a moment after her girlfriend settled down.

“Only eat melons made of water?! Frightening! Saddening! Truly a fate worse than death!!!” Of course he would be into the story. After all, he was pretty childlike at heart. Undyne howled with laughter once more, which made you snicker. It was rather contagious. after all.

“It’s scientifically impossible to only live of watermelon, since it doesn’t have all the necessary nutrition you would, uh… need… to, uh…” Alphys began to explain the logic, but Undyne was pouting, as if begging for the fun to not be ruined. The scientist gave in, mouth shut and forming a straight line.

Not long after, everyone agreed to heading to bed, and you separated into the two groups. Undyne and Alphys went to their own private tent that was a good fifteen to twenty feet away from the one you were going to be sharing with the skeleton brothers. You were the one to put out most of the fire, just to be safe, and within a minute or two, you entered your own tent, finding Sans already relaxing on top of his sleeping bag. Couldn’t even be bothered to open it.

To your left, you noted Papyrus, who was removing his shirt. Immediately, you, looked away, kind of feeling rude to have walked in at that moment. The skeleton noticed you with what you could assume was a grin, just based on his tone of voice.

“Ah, human! Will you be dorning comfier clothing, too?” He questioned. You quickly shook your head no, still avoiding looking at him.

“Nah, I’m good.” You carefully stepped forward to your own sleeping bag which had… ended up in the middle. Why you? Why had that always happened? Still maintaining a far off gaze, you settled down in the comforting and soon to be warm bag. It was taking some time to heat up, though, and you already began to shiver. Papyrus was done changing finally, and was situating himself within the confines of his sleeping space. He rolled over, facing you.

“I’m… really glad you’re here!” It was a whisper, but it sure came out loud enough that you imagined even Undyne and Alphys heard from their tent. The words were kind, though, and made you smile back sincerely.

“Thanks, Paps. I’m having fun.” You were being honest. The day had been short but the next would be even better and full of more things.

“Sleep well!” And with that, you closed your eyes and dreamed of watermelon.

***

The next morning went by in a blur, but in that, warm and comforting way you had grown accustomed to with everyone. It was almost as if… you were all friends from the start and simply catching up. Like you were meant to be there. It felt nice, to say the least.

Undyne and Alphys were up earlier than the skeletons, so you joined them on a hike through the woods. The latter of the two was so passionate about pointing out every trace of vegetation and excitedly spewing large doses of facts about them. You couldn’t help but beam at her in response and it made her overjoyed you were listening. Undyne discussed a lot about her time spent training in the woods of Snowdin. You were fascinated to learn that they had trees and seaweed that grew even underground. Or really that Snowdin was in a perpetual state of snow.

“Asgore made sure I learned both strength! Ngahh!” Undyne punched a tree that shook with the force. “And restraint.” She grinned a large and toothy grin. “But, uh, probably a butt load of other stuff, too. Just, ya know, those were the important things.”

“Tell me more about Asgore?” You were interested to know what the king was really like.

“Ah, he’s a real softie, that guy!” Undyne simply put it.

“He’s, um, really kind and strong. B-but fair! And he and Toriel used to be all lovey-dovey. Now they’re, uh, separated. But! I know better! My otp will be canon!” Alphys sure looked determined about that ship.

Toriel. You had heard her name a number of times. She was a school teacher for monsters and humans, apparently, and was known to make just as bad puns as Sans had. Undyne worked with her and always talked about how she wished Toriel had more time to hang out. You hoped to meet her someday.

It was an hour or so later that you were spending time instead with the skeletons. Or rather, you were teaching Papyrus how to play horseshoes while Sans napped away under a tree. Hadn’t he just woke up? Maybe he was just pretending…

At some point, Papyrus grew tired of the game and asked if you’d walk with him. Obviously, you agreed, since there wasn’t much else to do and the others were occupied with their own stuff. He looked happy at your agreement and led on into the woods. It was the same basic path you had followed with Undyne and Alphys. Alongside the path was a stream, still flowing, but you knew it’d be frozen within the next month when the temperatures finally dropped. A single leaf fell down from above and in the way of your foot steps.

It crunched softly.

“Human, I hope you aren’t too disappointed, but…” Papyrus’ voice was lower than you usually heard it. “I wanted to walk for a particular reason.”

“What’s that?” You prompted, speeding up to be by his side. You glanced at his face and suddenly started to understand.

“I wanted to talk with you, about some… troubling things.” He stopped walking and you did, too. Another leaf fell to the path. “Sans, everyone else, they believe I am stupid, but… that is not the case. Sans is correct that you cannot understand, however…” Papyrus looked up at you with hopeful eyes.

“Yes?” You wanted to hear what he had to say.

“I am not sure what is perplexing my brother, but it has been hanging over him for quite some time. I want to help… but even with all my greatness… I fail.” He looked absolutely crushed. Admitting defeat must not have been an easy task.

“You’re doing the best you can.”

“I ask that you help him. It is hard to explain, but he may just open to you. I ask of this, human, and only this. For me?”

“Of course.”

You had no idea how you could even begin to help, but… you felt determined. You felt you had no other choice. It wasn’t as if you had no idea what Papyrus was talking about, either, you had seen it all yourself. You just didn’t expect that the child-like skeleton was seeing all the same things. To be seen to everyone as dumb, oblivious, self-centered maybe even…

“Papyrus? You’re a very kind brother… and friend.” You wanted to comfort him first and foremost. In response to your words, Papyrus pulled you close for a hug and despite your shock, you held tightly to him as well.

Leaves fell into the river.

***

The camping trip was done before you knew it, with everyone in that same car, all packed up and heading home. You were going to be getting back to the city rather late, but you didn’t mind, you didn’t have school for the next few days. That meant sleeping in and catching up on everything you fell behind on. Or… other things.

You looked to Papyrus, and then to Sans. Yeah. Other things may take priority.

On the ride home, your thoughts began to drift to previous conversations, to what Sans had said to you multiple times.

 

_“You don’t understand.”_

As you pulled up to the house, you assisted in emptying it of Papyrus and Sans’ own things, tucking them away in the garage. The tarps were still there, covering up what you assumed were machines or parts. The blueprints and random scrawlings of math were rolled up and neatly stacked; the lamp that hung over them was off.

_“You can’t understand.”_

 

Sans watched you from the outside of the car, you could feel whenever his eyes were on you. You didn’t have time for his mind games anymore, or for his attempts at covering up the pain.

_“You weren’t there.”_

After everything was packed away, you entered the house to find Papyrus sitting alone at the table. He looked up at you as you came in, your face scrunched up in a deep concentration.

“Show me.” You kept your voice low, so that if anyone was around, they couldn’t hear. Papyrus looked confused. “Show me exactly where it happened. Show me the exit to the underground.” You removed a map from your back pocket and a bit harshly slammed it on the table.

“Human, I---”

“I need to know, Papyrus. I need to.”

If Sans was hurting bad enough to cause Papyrus pain, you felt you had to be involved. There was no other choice in the matter, not anymore, not since Sans wouldn’t tell you anything. Because you didn’t understand. You weren’t there.

**But now you were determined.**


	25. Determination.

Early the next morning, you arrived at the exit to the underground. It had been a long hike, even after the taxi ride to the start of the trail. The trail was long, however, and even at the end, you ignore the caution tape and kept going, for what felt like an hour. In front of you, even more tape, layers of it sealing off a large cave with warning signs all around it. You were always told as a child to stay away from the mountains, otherwise you would fall into the depths of it and never return.

This was… different, however. So very different.

This was where Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, Sans, and all the other monsters came out from and saw the sun for the first time in centuries. A part of you wished you could have been their for that very moment. As you began to build up courage, you clenched your fists and took a deep breath. That was when you felt a presence behind you.

You didn’t flinch.

“You can’t stop me, Sans. Why are you even here?” You reluctantly turned around to see the skeleton, but instead of the expected large grin, he was frowning at you.

“Papyrus fessed up. He was worried.” Sans quietly informed you, not moving any closer to you.

“You said I couldn’t understand because I wasn’t there, right? So I’m here. I’m going to understand.” You were persistent and forceful in your words, maintaining a firm stance. Sans tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes sadly.

“It’s dangerous, pal.”

“I can handle myself.” That was probably a lie, considering you had no idea what you were walking into. Sans began to smile, but it was still in such a solemn way. You couldn’t imagine what he was thinking in his head.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen, not this time…” He muttered. It was your turn to narrow your eyes, confused. What did he mean by that? You decided not to ask. “Fine, buddy. Have it your way. I’m coming with you, then.”

“What?” You were honestly shocked, and all the hardness from your face washed away.

“You’ll need a guide and I wanna keep an eye socket out for ya. For Papyrus. That softie would be heartbroken if something happened to you, and I could never let that happen.” Sans was back to a full grin, taking small steps to walk right past you. It took you a solid moment to come back to reality and to catch up with him.

Together, you stood at the opening. A shiver went down your spine.

Sans went in first, ducking under some of the yellow tape and not necessarily waiting for you. It was as if he was just being distant again. Why now of all times? You followed close behind anyway, struggling to have your eyes adjust to the significantly darker cave. The interior was much larger than you thought, with a roof that actually extended high up above your own head. It smelled damp.

“A large barrier. A magical seal that kept us underground. Here.” Sans gestured lazily with his right arm. “It mysteriously shattered after some sort of flash of light. I still never manage to know what happened.” The last part was mumbled, as if said more for his own benefit. The two of you kept walking through the dark, until there was another hall, better lit.

The floor was grey, but smooth, as if constantly checked up on. In the distance you noticed some of it was cracked. It had been five years, after all, wear was bound to show. Sans kept going, not bothering to say much of anything else. You simply did what you could; followed him up to the next entrance and passed through it.

The next room was… astonishing compared to what else you had seen. A large, open room, with beams of light shining down from above. At your feet, flowers and plants remained, though it was obvious certain sections were withered away from the lack of sun and available water. In the distance, you could even hear birds singing, calling attention to the morning. In the very center of the room, a large purple and gold chair. A throne.

“This is--”

“The throne room. Where Asgore, King of all Monsters, spent most of his time.” Sans finished your statement for you, wandering off to the left to see a chair hidden under a tarp. “He loved his flowers, probably more than most things… but not more than he loved his people.”

“That one under the tarp, was it---”

“Toriel’s? Yes.” Again, he cut you off. “Let’s keep going.”

Out you went again, into another grey hallway, but this time, with bricks and a split path. Sans immediately veered right, as if uncomfortable of the left path. At that point, you didn’t want to irk him anymore, and merely went to the right yourself. Your footsteps echoed in the emptiness of the castle, pebbles gently falling from the ceiling. As you approached the end of the path, however, Sans hesitated. You could see the way he tensed, despite only having bones.

“Sans?” You asked, stopping beside him. He cleared his throat and continued at a much slower place. This must have just been getting real to him. Before you was a large golden hallway, windows of an articulate design that let light shine in brilliantly. Large doric pillars were on either side, making you feel smaller than you actually were. The tile below you clicked beneath your feet. Sans was taking his time with each step he took.

“Here. I waited.” You stopped immediately when he spoke up. “And here, I judged. But I… don’t remember why… I can’t put all the pieces back into a single picture. There’s so much…” He closed his eyes and grinned. It appeared he was in deep thought about something. “Static. Noise. Pain.” One of those words wasn’t like the others.

“Are you… okay?” You took a step towards him and he jumped slightly, moving away from you. For a split second there was panic across his face and you worried you did something wrong. But after a moment of silence, Sans started to smile.

“Heh… sorry. Jumpy.” There was more to it than that, and you knew it. But it was too early to ask, there was so much more to see. Sans chuckled weakly, walking past you once again. You wished you could comfort him in some way, but there was just no way to. He wouldn’t allow it.

As you came to the end of the hall, Sans paused, looking over his shoulder, before continuing on into the next place.

Walking and walking, more grey toned atmosphere was all that you could find, but in the distance, a city. You watched it as you followed Sans further down. It looked so… empty. Cold. Crowded. No wonder they had wanted to move up to the surface. Suddenly, the hall stopped and turned left, through another entry way. More halls of grey. More and more, even as you turned left and right.

Until, you went up some stairs and into what looked to be a rather cozy home. Sans stopped at the top of the stairs, glancing back to be sure you were keeping up. As you climbed and soon stood next to him, you noted discoloration of the floor, squares that indicated furniture was once their. Someone had moved out.

“Welcome to the home of the King. The old one, that is.” Sans motioned using his left arm.

“Looks… inviting.” You muttered, moving on past the skeleton. He simply watched as you explored the surrounding area. It was mostly empty, with only one vase left. Inside were a few wilted flowers. To the left appeared to be a number of rooms, and to the right was a larger room with an old, dusty fireplace. You felt uneasy at the idea of snooping around Asgore’s old home.

“Wanna look around at all?” Sans practically was reading your mind. You shook your head slowly, eyes not even returning to look at him. With a shrug, he continued on, exiting the home. You followed shortly behind. “We’re about to reach the Core.”

“What’s that?” You wonder aloud as you passed by more views of the Capital.

“The machine that kept the underground running. It’s obviously not working anymore. And once we pass it, it’ll be rather dark. Hope you brought a flashlight, pal.” Luckily you had.

Sure enough, after a long elevator ride, you arrived at the Core. Getting prepared, you took a flashlight out from your backpack and held your thumb over the button. Sans quickly went for another entryway that led out to the main structure of the Core. It was dark.

Turning on your light, you could see the walls and flooring were blue with an assortment of red and grey accents. There was a bridge to your immediate right, and it was clear there was a pit that reached unfathomable depths. You suddenly felt like clinging to the wall.

“We can take the elevator.” Before you could even turn around, the elevator was opened and Sans was inside.

“But wait… how are these elevators working at all? You said the Core doesn’t work anymore.” You pointed out, hesitating to enter the possible death machine.

“Trust me.”

With all the trust you could muster, you stepped onto the elevator and watched as Sans’ left eye began to glow. The door closed and the entire thing started to move, causing you to squeak in surprise. Even with only dim lighting, you could see the smirk Sans had been giving you. Everything stopped after a moment, and with the smallest flick of the hand, the doors opened, revealing a different location.

“How…?” You mumbled, stepping outside with the skeleton a smidgen behind you.

“We should be at the Resort.” He was clearly ignoring your question.

The two of you exited the area and found yourselves coming up on yet another building, but this one looked rather large. Aiming your flashlight up, you noted just how high the ceiling was. Moving the light to in front of you, there was clearly a large fountain, which had already been overtaken with vines and moss. It appeared to be some kind of rectangular thing from behind. You cautiously stepped forward, your companion having stopped glowing. Further in you could see there was a small burger shop to your left and a counter to your right.

“You called this a resort, right?” You were walking backwards now, admiring the architecture that monsters had managed.

“MTT Resort. Apartment building turned Hotel. I used to perform stand up at the restaurant to our right. Fancy place. Needed a reservation for everything… that or a short cut inside.” He looked rather pleased with himself.

“So you were comedian?”

“No past tense about it, bucko.” With another grin, he walked past, using whatever his power was to force the automatic doors open. “This place used to be home to many monsters. That elevator over there also went straight to the capital.”

“Why aren’t we stopping there?” It was a genuine question. Sans froze up for a moment, but soon turned to look at you, eye still glowing with a strange blue light.

“I haven’t been there in a long… long time. Besides. It’s not necessary.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You said you wanted to understand.” The eye grew dim again as he grinned widely. Something about his tone of voice gave you shivers that ran down your spine. “The Capital isn’t necessary for that.”

“Oh. Okay. So, uh… where’s next?” You quickly followed him as he exited the Resort. The outside had ever more wilted plants and a large red carpet that led to another series of stairs. There were beautiful purple bricks beneath your feet.

“Hotland.” Was Sans’ one word response. Was he getting all weird on you again? “We’ll have to use an elevator again. Otherwise, it’s impassable.”

As you both made it halfway down the stairs, you found something you hadn’t exactly expected. A large section of the cave ceiling had apparently broken off and smashed the stairs up real good.

“Crap. How are we going to get past this?” You muttered mostly to yourself. Sans began looking around and then walking back up the stairs.

“This way.” Having no other ideas, you simply did as he told. Not quite at the to yet, he stopped and removed his hand from his pocket. You waited a long moment, confused as he stuck it out at you. “Take my hand.”

“Uhhh…” You were hesitant as per usual.

“Trust me. Take my hand and close your eyes. Please.” He looked at you with sincerity, something you weren’t quite used to. It was clear he had something in mind, so you let yourself trust him, taking his hand in your own and closing your eyes. The bones of his fingers squeezed your own fleshy hand tightly, as if in comfort. Then, after a few seconds, he loosened the grip. Sans led you forward three steps and once again stopped. “Okay, pal. Open up.”

You did as you were told and were suddenly immensely disoriented. You were no longer at the top of the stairs, but rather at the bottom. With a deep breath, you sat down on the ground, trying to relax as your body shook.

“Sorry… it’s always weird the first time.” Sans knelt down beside you, looking concerned. You finally steadied your breathing enough to speak up.

“H-How?”

“I, uh… well, let me explain it like this. Ya see, there are spots all around us, just little glitches, really. They’re undetectable to the untrained eye, but they’re there. Just floating tears that are possible to pass through. We just went through one.” Sans’ explanation took you a moment to grasp, but soon you were connection dots. He really was just disappearing out of nowhere…

“So wait… you could come into my room anytime?!” You glared at him, to which he snickered.

“Nah, there’s no way I could do that. The closest glitch is outside your apartment door.” That was a relief. “Are you okay to walk now?” You nodded and accepted his hand without a second thought as he helped you stand.

Without any more words, you followed him to the elevator. After that moment, you fell into a deep thought, nearly blocking out the world around you completely. It was finally brighter again, with what seemed to be lava far, far down below. That would account for the sudden rise in temperature. It was all beginning to hit you, just where you were and who with. Sans remained mostly calm through all of it, simply reacting as needed, but you weren’t about to forget his sudden shift in attitude back at that giant golden hall. It had been like he was a completely different person.

The experience had to be jarring to him, however. Seeing everything for the first time in five years… you could possibly compare it to going back to your hometown as an adult, but… maybe it wasn’t the same. The way Sans spoke of everything, the way he held himself…

Your thoughts were interrupted as the two of you arrived at a long wooden bridge with lava just below it.

“I was a sentry back in the day, too.” Sans reached for your hand, seeing your reaction to the bridge. You accepted it, shaking slightly. “That was my post.” He began to take small steps, holding onto you and leading you across.

“S-Sans…” You were about to beg to go back, too afraid of falling off, but he only kept talking.

“Papyrus was the one to push me to get a job. I had fallen in a routine of laziness… and being the cool guy he is… well.” Sans gently rubbed his thumb bone over your hand. He was comforting you once again. Why did he keep doing that? “Papyrus expected better of me. He encouraged me. He helped me.” Next thing you knew, you were on the other side, with the bridge behind you. Your hand was released once more.

After that, Sans never let up the pace, simply kept on going forward, giving you no time to stop and take in the environments. Something was up.

You passed straight into gorgeous cave systems of blue, with water and plants that had sustained themselves without outside assistance. Beautiful glowing flowers that seemed to whisper to you, about excitement… joy… what they thought the world up above would look like.

“These flowers…?”

“They’re Echo Flowers.” Sans finally spoke up. “Mysterious plants that repeat the last words they hear. What you are hearing now… are thoughts from five years ago.” He was keeping his voice quiet, as if not to disturb them, but to preserve them.

“So this was when..?” Again, your question went unfinished.

“When Monsters left the underground.”

You began to listen more closely, feeling shivers once more at the thought of all these monsters down there… trapped. While they must have adjusted to it, the truth was they would all dream of freedom, of the sunlight on their skin. Of real stars to wish on.

You wondered if Sans ever made any wishes.

A flower you passed by sounded strangely like Undyne. It told people to keep moving.

More time passed as Sans helped you navigate through the area he called Waterfall. A number of times you had to hop over small sections of water or really, just trudge through them in hopes they weren’t too deep. All of the hard work eventually paid off as you could see what you assumed to be the exit not far ahead. There was an odd white light shining from beyond and you felt your arms form goosebumps at the sudden gust of wind. Sans slowed his pace finally, but eerily as well.

“What’s on the other side?” You questioned, footsteps echoing in the small area.

“Snowdin.”

You froze for a moment. Snowdin. The town Papyrus always spoke of. Their old home. Again, the realizations hit you left and right, until you felt paralyzed and crushed by the significance of that moment. How much it meant to everyone that you were there. After gathering yourself again, you went forward, just behind Sans by maybe five feet. The light soon faded from brightness as your foot made the first step into snow. There was a narrow path ahead with running water that had connected to Waterfall.

Sans didn’t let up, he just kept going. You had to pick up the pace in order to keep close by to him, until the two of you arrived in the town itself, with its abandoned buildings and empty pathways. Sans very suddenly halted, not even that far in the town.

“Sans?” You came up behind him, slowing to a short trot as you noticed he was shaking. “Sans?” You repeated.

“You said you want to understand. But you can’t. I already told you that.” His voice became low and… solemn. It felt as if he wasn’t even talking to you, but to himself about you.

“That’s why I’m here.” You reminded him.

“No. You’re here because I messed up.” What was he even talking about? “You’re here because I didn’t do it right. Again. Again and again.” He suddenly turned to you, nearly scaring you half to death with his expression alone. Sans looked pained, with a large frown and narrowed eyes that said ‘go away’. You wouldn’t leave, though.

“Sans… what are you saying?” You were scared.

“What was it this time? Was I too distant? Is that even possible?” He was shouting at you all of a sudden, causing you to flinch and take a step back. “... I guess it is. I pushed you away… too much.”

Every part of you was tense, but even if you wanted to run away, there was no where to go… no reason to leave. This was what you had sought after for so long, for Sans to open up to you, and it seemed he was doing such.

“Maybe not enough.” Everything about him quieted down, his expression softened, but he still appeared as torn as before. Torn between telling you the truth or pushing you away more. “But it doesn’t matter. Next time.”

“Sans. Stop. Stop with all this cryptic nonsense! I need to know what’s wrong!” You were fed up with his dismissive tendencies, you wanted to understand for Papyrus. Because he needed you to. And for Sans, because he needed you.

“Do you have any idea how many times we’ve met?” The question made your stomach sink. “How many summers we’ve spent together? How many times I had to wake up to it never existing?!” More shouting. Tears began to form in your eyes, but you had no idea why you suddenly felt so sad.

“I don’t---”

“You don’t understand, right? Of course not. You can’t.”

“Then help me! Help me understand!” You began to shout back, fighting the tears that kept coming. The slowly trailed down your cheeks and fell to the snow below. As Sans noticed the tears, he again softened, staring at his feet.

“Sorry.” His expression shifted to that of remorse and regret. “You know how much I hate seeing ya cry.” But you didn’t know. You had never cried in front of him. “I keep trying, but… every time I see you again I want… I want to say something. I want it to pick up where we left off instead of starting over. The timeline, though… it just resets. Again and again.”

“So I tried real hard, like Papyrus does… to make you happy. Until it hurt too much. I didn’t want you in my life anymore. I didn’t want that pain anymore. I just wanted it all to go away… do you understand that?” Sans looked back to you, but you weren’t sure how to respond. The thoughts spun around in your head as you began to finally piece the puzzle together. The picture was starting to form.

“The timeline… it keeps resetting?” You echoed out his words, hoping to clarify.

“Yes. The timeline jumps around, starting and stopping until... “ He paused. “I wake up here every time, but with no memory of what comes next until what comes next happens. I experience deja vu over and over. Certain places and conversations spark memories and then I realize I’ve done it before. I’ve done everything before.”

“Sans… I’m so sorry.”

“All these different timelines, and you still stick around. You’ve never done this before, though. Guess you’re still full of surprises, huh?” He smiled weakly at you, but you knew it was forced. Just as forced as it always was.

“I’m sorry…” You had nothing else to say.

“I always cared. Don’t think I didn’t. Keeping you away has been one of the most painful things to do in my life. I knew I couldn’t keep you away from Papyrus, though… that never ended well.” You could have only imagined.

“I want to help…” You muttered, wiping away at the tears that finally stopped. “How can I help?”

“I dunno. Find the source of the resets… I’ve been working on that… I want them to finally stop. But there has to be another one coming, so… you’ll not remember any of this.” The cold way in which he said that made you feel frustration. An anger boiled up inside you, a sense of determination.

“I’ll do it.” You stated, turning away from Snowdin and stomping off.

“Wait!” Sans tried to stop you from leaving, but only had to catch up in the end. Ignoring him, you continued, despite not knowing where you going, until finally his voice caught your attention and you turned your head to listen to what he had to say. Suddenly, the rock and snow beneath your feet gave way and you felt everything in slow motion.

You fell back, too fast for Sans to grab your hand as he teleported closer. The look in his eyes was something you had never seen before. Everything flew past you, falling pebbles and clumps of snow that came down for the ride. Just before you hit the ground, you thought you heard your name being called out, but then your head collided with the rock.

And everything went white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally wanted this to be 5k words, but 4k works too ahahaa  
> Ahem! If you have questions or require clarification, please do let me know in the comments, I dunno how clearly I stated things in this chapter, so yeahhh  
> As a side note, sorry for the delay, I didn't have my laptop for 4 days and I didn't really have any other way to write, but here we are! Back on track now!  
> As a side SIDE note, this is your warning that from now on the story will have some actual reader shipping. I really hope this doesn't upset too many people, but I've kinda realized I started this as self indulgent and I want to keep it like that.
> 
> Otherwise, thank you so much for reading and commenting and leaving kudos, you're all such kind people and I am just so overjoyed with the reactions to my writing <3


	26. The Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters within a 24 hour period? Heck yeah  
> Just felt like these chapters needed some connection and all
> 
> Thank you all so much for 1000+ kudos  
> I am absolutely blown away with the positive reactions from this story. I assure everyone that there IS an ending planned, and it is a happy one. By next chapter I should know what the final chapter count will be. Thanks everyone again, you all mean the world to me <3

You began to dream.

The area was white, endless and vast with no hint of sound. You stood up from the ground and listened to the long and drawn out echo your movements produced. Suddenly, the whiteness was replaced with a building.

Sans and Papyrus’ home, a place you were all too familiar with. Something felt… off, however. There was no furniture, and the stairs seemed to lead upwards back into the vast whiteness. The door behind you was already closed and you found yourself called forward to the kitchen. Voices were coming from within.

“I don’t understand, Sans!” Papyrus. You came forward and stood just beside the entryway, not peering in, due to it all being covered in a film of shadow. Instead, you listened.

“You don’t have to. Just… stay away from them. Don’t invite them anymore.” Sans sounded cold, but sad. Shuffling of dishes and chairs happened, but your body remained frozen to the wall.

“The human and I are friends! I… I could never do that!”

“Listen, Paps. I told you already. Just listen to me.”

“But Sans, I--”

“Papyrus!” You felt your breathing stop at the sound of Sans’ shouting. His emotions were often kept so limited, to think he was capable of such anger.

“You’re… the worst!” Papyrus sounded close to tears.

“Listen, Paps, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout…”

“Why have you become so cruel?! I don’t like you this way, Sans! I just want my brother back!”

The words stopped and you found yourself on the second floor of the home. To your right, all the way at the end of the hall, Sans’ door still glowed with a mystical light. But voices again, came from Papyrus’ room. You stepped forward and tried the handle, but it didn’t budge. So you simply had to listen.

“And they all lived happily ever after.” There was the distinct sound of a book closing and the creaking of bedsprings. “Night, Paps, don’t let the termites bite.”

“Sans?” Papyrus’ voice was small, but amazingly audible.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Can I talk to you about some… feelings?”

“Feelings?” Sans sounded more amused than anything else.

“Yes. Complex ones. For the human.” There was sudden silence. You felt tense just waiting for something to be said, anything at all. Finally, there were words once more.

“For… them?” Sans’ tone changed drastically.

“Y-Yes… I believe they are… romantic feelings. And I would very much like to hold their hand and feed them spaghetti we make together.” You could tell Papyrus was shy about the topic, but still very passionate, as with anything.

“That’s… really great, Papyrus. Night.” The footsteps grew closer and closer, until they were right on the other side. All of a sudden, you weren’t in front of Papyrus’ door, but rather Sans’. His voice became clear once more.

“I, uh… I didn’t think this would be so hard, ya know? But… here goes. I… really care about you and I want to… I would like…”

“...” Another voice joined in, but you couldn’t concentrate on it enough to make out words, you merely acknowledged its existence.

“Yeah. Exactly. Heh, see, we really are perfect for each other, huh, Babe?”

“...”

“Sorry, too soon? Or should I just call ya my verte-bae?”

“...”

“Ah, you’re right. I should be aSHINed of myself!”

“...”

“Too forced? Nah. No such thing. Otherwise you wouldn’t feel the same about me… right?” The last word echoed, until the world around you disappeared and you were in a new location. School. Your school, to be exact.

A group stood around you. Classmates you had become acquainted with over the last year of school, before summer break. They were all mostly moving or finalizing majors. You didn’t see them much anyway.

“So has that freaky monster stopped following you yet?” The faceless person stared at you. It unsettled you to your core, and you failed to find a voice within all the static of your thoughts.

“Oh man, is that them over there?” You looked where another pointed. A black shadow was in the distance, lingering behind a bush that sat atop the neverending whiteness. You felt confused by its presence. Why was it there? Why was it following you? Why was it watching with such… sadness.

You were suddenly alone, staring at nothing. The whiteness was replaced with darkness, filling you with a sense of impending doom and dread. Sound cut off completely, and you were left there for quite some time, before you heard a voice once more, calling your name. You spun around numerous times, trying to find the source, until everything was clocks. Everything ticked at you in loud, sudden ticks, shaking you to your core. It became overwhelming, until you found your own voice.

“STOP!” You shouted, and it all grew quiet. You collapsed to the ground, barely managing to even sit up properly. Sans was suddenly there beside you, sitting nonchalantly.

“Have you figured it out yet? Do you understand?” He asked you in a low, uneasy voice.

“No…”

“But you have. You remember. You remember us… and you remember when it wasn’t us. You remember when it was you and Papyrus.”

Your head ached and ached, each word causing a stabbing pain in the back of your head.

“But you won’t remember.”

“What?” You shouted your question, the static in your mind too loud.

“Even now, you forget. Because it’s a dream.” Papyrus was then in front of you, extending a hand.

“I’m not… dead?” Your head pains only became worse, but you took the oven mitten clad hand all the same.

“T-Technically, no! Or, uh… scientifically! You’re still alive, but you need to stay that way!” Alphys was not to your other side. She stared at you with a large smile. “We… don’t want to lose you!”

“Yeah, Punk!” Undyne appeared behind you, gripping your shoulder gently. “The mystery isn’t solved yet and I won’t let you give up! So let’s do this!” She fist pumped the air and grinned with all her teeth showing.

“You made a promise.” Papyrus drew in your attention once more, the area around him becoming brighter. “Please… keep it.”

“Have some determination.” It was only Sans then. He stood in front of you, with a patient look. Everything was growing lighter, the blackness fading away, but your pain only grew with intensity. It became unbearable and you couldn’t keep your eyes open. Risking one more glance, you saw an image flash before your eyes. A… person? Monster? Human? It was too quick to tell. Everything shook and the static was no longer just in your head, but everywhere. It consumed you, until

You woke up.

Your eyes were cast upwards, staring at an insignificant white ceiling. You blinked a few times, and rolled over to your left, seeing Sans, asleep in a chair. It must have been rather late. The pain in the back of your head persisted, but to a much lesser degree than in your dream. Speaking of your dream… what was it? Most of it already faded from memory. Dreams were funny like that.

Taking in the environment, you noted where you were. A hospital.

The door suddenly opened, revealing a tired looking Papyrus. He was in by far the most casual clothing you had ever seen him in before, with just a t-shirt and sweat pants.

“Sans, I told you not to fall asl---” Suddenly his eyes fell on you and his frown turned right side up into a grin. “Sans!!! Sans!!! The human!!!” He looked so giddy to see you awake, you couldn’t help but smile back. Sans stirred from his sleep, opening up the right eye to look in your direction. His own frown became a sleepy smirk. It suited him.

“Hey there, pal. Have a nice dirt nap?” He teased you.

“Human!! How do you feel? Are you okay?! I have to alert Undyne and Alphys!!!” Papyrus was out the door again before you could even come up with a response. So the others were there, too.

“Hope you got enough ‘z’s, cause those three will be keeping you up for a while.” Sans whispered, his voice all mellow from his own rest. “But don’t worry. You’re staying with Paps and I until you’re fully recovered, kay?”

You were okay with that.


	27. Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone had asked for clarification on the timelines and so I have here the list of the different timelines that involve the reader:  
> 1) Sans falls for the reader, admits feelings, they get together  
> 2) Sans becomes bitter and doesn't progress their friendship the same way, focuses more on papyrus. This leads to Papyrus having feelings for the reader, but saying nothing to the reader before the reset.  
> 3) The timeline goes longer and Papyrus successfully ends up with Reader, to Sans' dismay.  
> 4) Sans tries to tell Papyrus to stay away from the reader, but only makes things worse and causes Papyrus to be upset with him  
> 5) Sans makes a selfish(?) Choice to have the reader to themselves. Things go well until the reset.  
> 6) Sans tries to force the meeting earlier by following the reader to school. Things go badly   
> 7) The current timeline.
> 
> Thanks everyone for reading and enjoying the story, you're all so kind <3

Entering the home of Papyrus and Sans again felt odd. Maybe it was because you had luggage this time, or that it was absurdly early in the morning, or even that it was a day in the middle of the week. But no, it was probably the fact that Undyne was carrying you in bridal style. You had tried to remind her earlier that you suffered head-damage, not leg-damage. She, in turn, insisted that you could experience a fainting spell and she was not about to have you fall over again. You didn’t argue further.

She carefully set you down on the couch and gave Papyrus a thumbs up, proud of herself. If she could suplex a fridge, you weren’t sure why she had to prove herself just carrying you. Off Undyne went into the kitchen where you knew Alphys had been earlier. Papyrus came over to you and sat on the couch just to your right. There was a small silence that spread, where you could only awkwardly rub at the stitches on the back of your head. That was probably not something you were supposed to do.

“That was stupid of you, you know.” Papyrus’ sudden words took you by surprise and the level of seriousness to them was unsettling. “To put yourself in so much danger.”

“Paps, I---”

“If my brother wasn’t there I would hate to imagine…” Papyrus’ knuckles tightened as he rested them on his lap. “Human. I care about you. Please don’t be so reckless.” With that, he stood up, peering down at you. The weight of his gaze made you feel small in comparison. Outstretching his left hand, he gently ruffled your hair and smiled, then left as if nothing was up. This was the second time you had seen him so… intense. You admittedly didn’t want to see it again.

Releasing a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding in, you relaxed and leaned back on the couch. In the distance, you could hear the muttering of Alphys and Undyne, but couldn’t quite make out their words. You wondered how much the skeleton’s actually told them about what you had done. In turn, you wondered how much Sans told Papyrus. If he told him anything at all.

“Hey, pal…” Speak of the devil, Sans was standing at the foot of the stairs, gently smiling at you. “Doing alright?” He walked over, but stopped just in front of you.

“Yeah. Are we going to talk about… what you said? Down there?” At that point, there was no use being roundabout. Sans snickered, joining you on the couch.

“No.” Was all he replied. You were too tired to argue, so you leaned back and closed your eyes. You had no idea how long Sans stayed there with you, but you eventually dozed off.

When you woke up again, it was dark and you were somewhere else.

Papyrus’ bed. The skeleton himself wasn’t anywhere around, however. In fact, you were simply alone, the only light being a plug in that was across the room. Sitting up, you let your feet dangle off the bed and held your head as it throbbed. Headaches were almost as bad as a stuffed nose. You got up and dragged your feets against the carpet as you left the room to enter the darkened hallway. You must have slept for a long time.

Taking a left and trotting down the stairs, you found Papyrus, asleep on the couch. One arm was hanging off the couch, the other tucked in close to his body. It was adorable to see him so peaceful, but you did feel a little bad to have taken his room. Then again, you knew he obviously didn’t mind.

The house was rather peaceful with all its darkness and the soft hum of the heater kicking on. October was drawing to an end, which meant november would bring chilling wind and snow. In some ways you were excited to see the city covered in a sheet of white, but in other ways, you knew the holidays were coming up and the streets would be busier than ever. You won some you lost some.

Entering the kitchen, you stopped very suddenly at the sight of Sans at the table. He slowly glanced up at you and grinned, rolling up the crosswords he had been working on.

“Morning, sunshine.” He teased. You rolled your eyes, but smiled all the same, heading to the fridge for a water bottle. Sans kept his eyes on you the entire time. “Papyrus was real worried about you. Insisted you stayed in his room.”

“I kind of put two and two together.” You whispered, opening up the bottle.

“I’ve been real worried, too.” His voice had suddenly gotten lower, cracking on the last word. “Paps probably doesn’t realize---”

“Papyrus is a lot smarter than you give him credit for.” You said sharply, sitting on the kitchen counter on the other side of the room from Sans. The skeleton paused, narrowing his eyes.

“What are ya saying?”

“I’m saying… Papyrus knows something is wrong. He may not know what, but he’s not an idiot.” You suddenly felt nervous having Sans stare at you with such feeling. And not the good kind of feeling. “You should tell him what you told me.”

“No.” His answer came quick and sharp. “Not again…”

“Papyrus deserves to know.” You gestured toward the living room with determination. “He’s your brother!” Your whispering was increasing in volume.

“I can’t hurt him like that. Not again. What’s the point if it just resets?!” Sans was gripping the table rather hard, fingertips digging into the wood. “And here I thought you understood finally. Pah.” He shook his head, retracting his fingers from the table and looking away from you.

“I understand you’re being stupid and selfish. If you really cared about Papyrus you would tell him the truth, you would spend more time with him instead of having all those jobs, you would---”

“DON’T. Tell me I don’t care about Papyrus.” There was that same venom to his voice. “And the jobs weren’t about being away from him.” Silence fell over the room. After a moment, you inhaled shakily and chugged nearly half your water. You held onto the bottle tightly and stared Sans down.

“I’m going back to bed.”

“Wait.” You stopped halfway through the entryway. “I want to make it perfectly clear, pal. Papyrus has always been my priority.” The way his voice wavered, you wondered if one time he wasn’t. That Sans maybe felt guilty. That you were pushing all the right buttons to bring out that angry side to him and that you really shouldn't have been. You left without another word.

The next morning you woke to the smell of food in the kitchen and groggily made your way down the stairs in the sweater Papyrus had gifted you long ago. As you entered the room, Papyrus stopped his humming and turned to smile at you.

“Good morning, Human! I have a new culinary masterpiece for you to taste!” His warm greeting was much appreciated as you sat down at the table. Sans was already there, eating a slice of his pie. Or so you assumed. You of course didn’t see where half of it had went.

“Morning.” You mumbled, rubbing at your eyes. Soon, a plate was set down in front of you with what definitely looked like scrambled eggs. You mumbled a thank you and took a bite. It was actually rather good.

The rest of the morning passed without much incident, though the rest of the pie disappeared without your noticing. The next few days were like that, however. You and the skeleton brother’s played some kind of game or watched a movie and passed the time. Sans didn’t act distant or angry anymore, simply closer, and Papyrus seemed perfectly okay again, even happy. But as with everything, there came the time you had to return to your apartment and usual life of school.

Undyne arrived to give you a ride home and you held on tightly to your bags as you exited the home. Turning on your heel, you looked to the skeleton brothers and felt some kind of… emptiness in your heart. Like you weren’t supposed to leave.

“It was fun having you, human…” Papyrus mentioned, hands clasped together in front of him. Sans nodded in agreement.

“Thanks so much, guys. I’ll see you real soon.” As you were about to keep going, Papyrus ran up and hugged you, lifting you off the ground slightly. He was way stronger than he looked. After another second he set you down and waved.

You got in the car with Undyne and the two of you were off rather quickly.

“Oh, hey, by the way, I almost forgot to mention.” She suddenly started, staring straight ahead. “I got a halloween party this Saturday. You’re obviously invited and we’re gonna pARTY HARD!” She gave a loud ‘woo’ and honked her horn at nothing at all. You couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

You could honestly use a party.


	28. Spooky Scary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready to meet way too many characters at once!

The truth of the matter was you had barely been home long enough to clean things up, let alone go out and get a costume for a Halloween party you hadn’t heard about until a few days before. So when you arrived empty handed to the skeleton bro’s home, you were admittedly a tad embarrassed.

Papyrus opened the door in a rather dramatic display, using his hand to flick his cape in the air. It seemed he was wearing some sort of old-fashioned fencing outfit; like what the three Musketeers would have worn. Minus the poofy pants. It actually suited him quite well and would have fit right in with the rest of his wardrobe. More or less.

“Human! What are you dressed as?” Papyrus was staring you down with wide eyes filled with anticipation. You couldn’t necessarily lie off the top of your head to him.

“I, uh, don’t have a costume. Was too busy and all.” You explained. The skeleton nodded in understanding and took your hand, leading you inside.

“No matter, you’ll still have a blast! Do you like my costume?”

“Love it, Paps.” He nyeh-heh’d at your words and released your hand once you were fully inside. Then, he closed the front door and glanced up at the broken clock that was a result of a particularly bitter night for Undyne.

“Sans! Aren’t you done lolly gagging yet?!” He called up towards the stairs with arms crossed. You noted the impressive looking leather gauntlets and the intricacy of his vest work. The costume didn’t look store bought, but then who made it?

After another moment, down came Sans in probably the dumbest thing you had ever seen. And by that you meant it made you bust out laughing right away. Sans was wearing a pair of dusty, torn up patched work jeans with an equally tattered shirt and trench coat.

“Whaddya think?”

“Oh my god, Sans what are you?” Papyrus deadpanned in clear disgust.

“A homeless person.”

“Nope! You are not going as that, I demand you come up with something better.”

“Aw, c’mon Paps, the Human ain’t wearing any costume. Besides, we’re already going to be late.” Sans pointed out, gesturing at your lack of festivities.

“Fine. Sans, you go figure something out for the Human, I have the perfect and most genius idea for you.” With that, the taller skeleton dashed off somewhere upstairs.

“Jeez. Harsh, huh?” Sans looked to you for validation, but you simply rolled your eyes with amusement. “Yeah, yeah. What are YOU supposed to be, a silent protagonist?”

“Har har.” You fake laughed. “Let’s just hurry up.”

“Follow me, Pal.” You did just as Sans asked, followed him upstairs and to your surprise, all the way to the end of the hall. His room. Removing a key from his pocket, Sans unlocked the door and pushed it in. You were greeted with… nothing special.

There was a bed in the far right corner, no sheets, just a single uncovered pillow. To your immediate right was a trash bag that really could stand to be taken out, and to the left, a pile of laundry that was probably their a while. The far left corner only had a single table with a lamp that wasn’t plugged in and instead of a lightbulb, it looked like there was a flashlight taped to the base. All in all everything was kind of… sad. There lacked any decoration or small object of meaning. The bare necessities and piles of junk.

Sans didn’t make any fuss about things, just kept walking to the back of the room, opening up a closet to reveal slim pickings in the way of clothing. Reaching his hand in, eventually he yanked an article of clothing out and turned back to you.

“Here.” It was a large black hoodie with skeletal ribs on it. You chuckled, slipping it over your regular clothing. “Now you’re one of us.” Sans smirked slightly.

“Thanks.” You responded, pulling the cloth down to flatten the image completely. Wasting no more time, however, Sans walked on past you and held the door open long enough for you to pass through, before closing and locking it up once more. What was there really to keep locked up in there?

“AHA! Sans! I figured it out!” Before you fully understood what was happening, Sans was being spun around and wrapped up in what looked to be toilet paper. Suddenly, Papyrus stopped him and held him in place. “Now you are a Mummy!”

Sans struggled against the paper which was impressively strong.

“Ha-ha, very funny, but, uh, why did you wrap up my arms, too?” Sans questioned right away.

“Authenticity, my brother.” Papyrus answered matter-of-factly. With a sigh, the shorter skeleton gave in, wobbling his way over to the stairs. It took quite a bit of work, but eventually all three of you were in Paps car, heading to Undyne’s house. It came to your attention that all of that had felt rather odd, seeing as you almost exclusively spent time at the skeleton home. If her house was large enough for a Halloween party, why was it you had never been there?

Not too long later, the car ride filled with Papyrus singing along to every cheesy pop song, came to an end as you all pulled up to a huge two story home with decorations of every kind. Undyne was just a school teacher how on EARTH did she afford that? You assisted Sans out of the car and watched as Papyrus giggly squealed and dashed off toward the front door. You lagged behind with the wrapped up Sans.

When you finally made it to the door, it appeared Paps had went inside already, and instead you were greeted with a rather angry looking dummy.

“Odd decoration…” You muttered. The dummy suddenly shifted its gaze towards you and you flinched.

“WHO YA CALLING A DECORATION YOU MEANIE, MEANIE, MEANIE.” It shouted at you, bouncing up and down.

“Woah, sorry!” You took a step back with hands raised in defense. Beside you, Sans snickered in amusement.

“JUST TELL ME YOUR NAME.”

“What?” You were confused to say the least.

“I’m Sans. The human’s with me.”

“AHHH… GO AHEAD. QUICKLY, QUICKLY, QUICKLY!!!” The two of you rushed inside at the continued yelling. There was no need to hang around that guy.

Upon entering the party, you looked all around and were soon overwhelmed by the sheer number of monsters. It seemed as if there was everyone who ever lived in the underground. Not too far away, you noticed Papyrus chatting with a very loud Undyne. She seemed to be wearing her usual get up, except with a huge WWE belt and an impressive fake blonde mustache as well as a bandanna tied around her head. Was she seriously… Hulk Hogan?

Papyrus made eye contact with you, rushing on over in a heartbeat and again, taking your hand.

“Human!!! You have so many Monsters to meet!!!” He was absolutely ecstatic at the prospect, bouncing up and down much like the Dummy Bouncer outside did. Heh… Bouncing Bouncer. You digressed, it seemed the skeleton was truly eager to show you off to everyone in the building. “There’s Napstablook and Mettaton!” The famous Mettaton? “Oh and you’ll have to meet Doggo and Muffet and the---”

“Oh, hey, Tori. And how ya doing, Frisk, it’s been too long, kid!” Sans’ voice suddenly stopped Papyrus’ list all together. You, too, were intrigued just as the name drop of Frisk. The other human. They were here.

You suddenly turned on your heel only to come face to face with Frisk themselves.


	29. Guests

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone bummed about how short some of these meetings are, don't worry, a certain few characters will pop up again

They couldn’t have been older than fourteen and that was taking in account that they may have had perpetual baby face. Small stature, just a bit shorter than Sans himself, narrow eyes, neutral expression, and yet you still felt uneasy with the way the stared at you. It was uncomfortable.

Though it all certainly wasn’t helped by the fact that the two very large goat-looking monsters behind the human were wearing what seemed to be costumes of Snap and Crackle, with Frisk being Pop. You know, like the cereal.

“Good evening, Sans and Papyrus. This must be your friend you’ve spoke of so much.” The one whom you assumed was Toriel began to look right at you.

“It is so very nice to meet you.” The largest monster greeted. Now who on earth was he? Suddenly it clicked in your mind and you felt even smaller in his impressive shadow. The King of all Monsters. What a goof!  
“Uh, yeah. Nice to meet you.” Was the best you could do for a response.

“Frisk? Why don’t you say hello?” Toriel prompted the other human, placing her hand on their shoulder rather gently. They didn’t stop staring at you. “Ahem. Please do excuse, Frisk. They have been experiencing a hard time lately. Perhaps we will see you later, tonight? Come along, Asgore.” Toriel began to lead Frisk away, causing them to finally break eye contact.

“Yes, Tori.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Yes, Toriel.” Asgore frowned, but waved goodbye all the same.

“Buh-Bye your majesties and Frisk!!!” Papyrus rapidly waved his arm back and forth.

After they had shuffled off towards another section of the house, you exhaled and relaxed muscles you hadn’t realized were tensed up in the first place. Sans snickered, and you assumed he would have patted your back had he been able to.

“That kid’s intense.” You muttered.

“They usually aren’t like that, sorry.” Sans explained quite calmly.

“Really?” You admittedly wanted to know more if there was even more to know.

“Frisk is a very warm human! I assure you!” Papyrus put a hand on your shoulder, an attempt at expressing his sincerity. In that moment, you simply had to trust them. Perhaps it was just jarring to see another human for once? Yeah, that was all it was.

“Helloooooo, darlings!” Now that was a voice you recognized. “Papyrus, you look stunning!” Mettaton himself had sauntered on over, a small, but adorable ghost trailing behind.

“Thank you, Mettaton! What are you dressed as?” Papyrus asked, all giddy as per usual.

“Why, myself of course. There’s no one else I’d rather be!” He let out a large laugh, covering his mouth with his hand.

“That’s not even a costume then…” Sans mumbled and rolled his pupils.

“And what are you supposed to be, Sans? An overflowing toilet? How fitting.” Mettaton did not look happy.

“Har. Funny. Real insulting.”

“Just shove all that toilet paper in your mouth.” The robot celebrity snapped.

“Are you two fighting again?” All eyes turned to Papyrus, who was definitely ready to cry. Immediately, both Mettaton and Sans began to grin.

“Most certainly not, darling!”

“Nah, bro, we’re just… joking around.”

“Yes! Just being pals! Ahaha! Ha!”

“Uh…” You were beginning to feel uncomfortable at this sudden outburst. You weren’t the only one, however, because the ghost just behind Mettaton appeared to be just as conflicted about being there as you. When they noticed your staring, though, they hid further behind the robot.

“Yay! I’m so glad you two have become friends!” Papyrus cheered. Knowing Papyrus as well as you had at that point, you could only assume he knew they weren’t pals, but it sure was easier to have them make friends with manipulation. Or maybe you were giving him too much credit. “I’m going to go see about refreshments!” Off he dashed.

“Asshole.” Mettaton glared daggers at Sans.

“Egotistical people-pleaser.” Sans shot back, looking smug as all hell when the other was actually offended. Before Mettaton could rebuttal, the skeleton simply looked back at the ghost. “How ya doing, Napstablook?”

Napstablook came out from hiding only slightly, but it was enough for you to see they had on a top hat and a small, but rather cute bowtie. You’d even go as far as to say they looked incredibly dapper.

“I’m doing… okay.”

“Just okay?”

“It’s very crowded here. I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to sound like I was complaining. It’s a good party… I just don’t know how to talk to people… sorry.” Blooky went back behind Mettaton.

“You’re alright, Blooky darling. Everyone’s adoring your music, after all!”

“Y-yeah?”

“Hey, we’re gonna, uh, head off. It was nice seeing ya, Blook. And Mettaton… hope I don’t see you again.” Sans winked and began to waddle off. You followed, muttering a quick goodbye. You weren’t positive, but you were pretty sure you heard Mettaton mutter something about you being able to do better than ‘that’.

After a minute of shuffling through the crowds that had formed, you and Sans arrived at the snack table where Papyrus was, rambling away at what looked to be a dog in a ninja costume. Of course, he stood on hind legs, but it still felt odd to see.

“Hey, Bro. Hey, Doggo.” Sans really knew everyone, didn’t he?

“Save. Me.” The dog whispered through gritted teeth as Papyrus didn’t even stop his monologuing. You stayed pretty still, just standing back and observing. This was not your terrain to tread on, not when you only really knew the hosts and the skeletons. Speaking of hosts, you hadn’t seen Alphys anywhere. Maybe she was upstairs and Undyne was monitoring downstairs. There was quite a number of people, after all.

“Uhhh, Paps, I think I heard Muffet wanted to talk to you about, uhhh, collaborating on some new baked goods.” Sans quickly interjected, piquing his brother’s interest.

“THE Muffet wants to bake? With me? It’s about time!” He announced in response, dashing off yet again. Once Papyrus had left, Doggo let out a sigh of relief, turning to face the shorter skeleton.

“Thanks, you really saved my tail.”

“Don’t mention it.” Sans grinned a bit wider. At that point, you noted Doggo was staring directly over the skeleton's head at… absolutely nothing. Was he blind?

“Haven’t seen you at Grillby’s in a long time. Where’ve you been?”

“Eh, doing things. Have you met my pal, yet?” Why was Sans smirking at you…

“No? Where?”

“Hey, can you, uh, wave your hand or something?” It was directed at you. So, of course, you waved your hand and flinched when Doggo immediately shifted his gaze in your direction. That was kind of freaky.

“Oh. Hello.” Doggo greeted rather calmly. It hadn’t been long at all, but sure enough, Paps made his way back over, shouting up a storm. Doggo, in turn, yelped and made a dash for it, though he ran into the wall along the way to escaping.

“Sans!!! Sans!!! Muffet has a message for you!”

“Welp. Give it to me, then.

“She says: Sans, Dearie, don’t ever lie about me again or I will make you regret it. And then she giggled.” Papyrus didn’t even attempt an impression, simply gave the message as is.

“Ouch. Sounds like a real sticky situation. Too bad I’m already all tied up.” Sans winked.

“Stop.” There lied Paps’ smile. Rest in Pieces.

The song that had been playing since you had arrived was finally fading out, the incredibly upbeat tune exchanged for one that was more slow and led to the dance floor (you hadn’t even really seen it there was so many monsters) being emptied out of all the high-energy dancers. Without much of any warning, Papyrus took your hand for the third time that evening and began to tug you towards the mentioned dance floor.

“I love this song, let’s dance, Human!” To be honest, you hadn’t had the heart to deny his request. Then again you felt that way about everything Papyrus asked of you. Glancing back, you waved at the still tied up Sans and were suddenly surrounded by a sea of unfamiliar faces. As you finally arrived to the floor, the tall skeleton pulled you rather close and began to lead you in the dance.

Even with your stepping on his feet repeatedly, mostly out of pure nervousness, Papyrus just kept going, fingers intertwined with yours and a hand on your waist. The atmosphere of… well, everything, had changed and you were practically being swept off your feet. Everything melded together, the crowds blurred into blobs of color and the music into soft, hardly noticeable notes. You felt ridiculous. Ridiculous that you were actually seeing this goofball, one of your best friends, as an attractive gentleman. Hadn’t you thought weeks ago that you could never imagine Paps like this? Probably. Undoubtedly.

After awhile of spinning around, until you had gotten the hang of it that was, your dance partner spoke up.

“I hope this isn’t all too much for you. With the recent happenings and such…” Your injuries. Your head was hurting a bit, but you could still pull through. “I just wanted everyone to meet you and to see how great you truly are! In my rush of hopes, however, I may have forgotten to be sure you were… comfortable.”

“I’m doing fine.” You assured him. That was, until you made a full circle again and saw Sans with that condescending smirk of his. Jeez, he never missed an opportunity to bother you, did he? What was his problem?

“Human? Are you alright?” Papyrus tilted his head, a motion that was all too adorable.

“Uh, yeah, just… headache. I’m going to go sit down awhile.” You broke contact with him, stepping back a bit wobbly. While he did look disappointed, you knew he always understood.

Hurriedly, you made your way back through the crowd in time for the music to pick back up and for the entire dance floor to be filled. Poor Paps was stuck in the midst of that. Ignoring the thought, however, you made it back to where you last saw Sans, only for him to be gone. Bonehead. That was when you felt your phone vibrate in your pocket.

‘closet.’

What on earth? It was from Sans, but the fact that he had sent it made it no less creepy. With a huff of breath, you began to wander around in search of the alleged closet he was hiding in. Sure enough, there was none on the first floor, so you had to make your way up the stairs into a mostly abandoned hallway. After passing a few doors, you noticed one the way left just a crack open and decided to try it. Carefully, you pulled it open more to reveal the still wrapped up Sans.

“Heya, Pal.”

“Your text was creepy.” You complained, entering the spacious closet and closing the door behind you. It was eerily quiet inside.

“Sorry bout that. Can you give me a hand here, seeing as I don’t have one?” He struggled against the Mummy costume and you were finally getting the idea. Wait… how the HECK did he text you without hands? Trying to simply get everything over with, you went around to behind him and leaned forward so you could see what you were doing in the dim lighting. You were practically breathing down his spine.

“Are you really that embarrassed to not have me help you with this outside?” You asked in a quiet voice.

“Kinda. Hey, so… how do you feel about my brother?” That felt like a loaded question right off the bat. The knot was successfully undone and you began to unravel the makeshift costume.

“Papyrus is great.” You answered honestly. “One of my best friends.”

“Hm.” Was all he replied with. The toilet paper you had removed formed a rather hefty pile beside him. Reduced to the original homeless person costume, Sans rolled his shoulders and stretched. Then, he shrugged off the gross coat and sat on a box labeled ‘anime’.

“Why?” You prompted, crossing your arms. Sans shrugged at you.

“You seemed pretty happy dancing with him.”

“It was fun.” You explained with little enthusiasm.

“Yeah. Of course. Anything with Paps is fun.”

“Sans, what is your problem?” After the events of the underground, you had become more than fed up with him. Fed up with the way he danced around subjects or avoided them all together. Fed up with his attitude and cryptic bullshit. Fed up that he didn’t trust you enough. If the timeline was going to reset, why hadn’t he told you ANYTHING.

“I don’t have a problem, pal.”

“Clearly you do.”

“Are you an expert on me now, hm? Just cause of what I said before? Just cause you think you know me?” He was getting pissy again. In some ways, Sans was more childish than Papyrus. At least his brother admitted to things and came clean.

“Stop being so selfish!” You snapped at Sans.

“I’m not selfish anymore! He can have you if he wants!”

There was a long and very sudden silence. Sans immediately realized his mistake and began to mutter curses under his breath.

“Sans…?” You began, heartbeat through the roof. “What… were we?”

In the blink of the eye, Sans had vanished.


	30. The Garden in Him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taking super short hiatus from this story  
> And by that I mean a week at the most  
> Essentially I will be focused on my next big project after this story is done with! I want a lot of it pre-planned and written simply because it involves way more than this story did ahaha  
> As reminders:  
> -This story will have a happy ending  
> -There will be a separate work that will be a series of one-shots set in the same universe (or a slightly different version of the universe) but didn't have a place in the story itself  
> -My next big project is a secret AU I'm working on w/ a pal of mine and I really hope at least some of you guys like it when it comes out ;v;

You did the only thing you could have thought to do in that moment. You panicked.

Carefully sitting down on the floor, you drew your knees closer and attempted to slow the thoughts flashing in your mind. The truth was, however, the more you fought them, the harder they came. All together they melded into an unspeakable answer and your world felt too small. It had been clear that Sans already knew you, that they all had already known you, but now there had been your parting question left unanswered. What were you to him? A significant other? An unrequited love? Was he simply manipulating you this entire time or…

He had said he wasn’t selfish anymore.

Your hands were shaking just as much as the time he teleported with you. This situation also seemed to leave you just as disoriented. For a long time you stayed in the closet, trying to steady your breathing.

You tried again and again to reach Sans through text and phone call, but ultimately, you were ignored.

Time dragged on until you were completely out of it and the next events all blurred by your senses. At some point Alphys had found you and was there, instructing your breathing and talking with you patiently. For once, she never stuttered.

When your limbs stopped feeling numb, she helped you stand up and went to get Papyrus. While you felt guilty you were interrupting his good time, you hoped he knew where Sans was. To your disappointment, when he arrived, he informed you he had not seen Sans since before your dance.

“He does this sometimes. My brother enjoys his… privacy. I am sure we shall see him at home!” For some reason, you felt Papyrus may have been as freaked out as you. Regardless, the assurance was comforting. The skeleton took your hand in his and muttered a quick goodbye to Alphys who stared at you with immense concern. Then, you were gone, sitting in the passenger's seat of Papyrus’ car while he continued to comfort you.

The world finally slowed down for you and your thoughts compiled. Sans had messed up and you knew he was afraid of your reaction. Afraid to tell you the truth he had hid so well in his struggle to keep you away, but his need to have you close.

“What had you and Sans spoke of?” Papyrus returned to a more serious tone, staring straight at the road. “I know you are used to his disappearing… so what had made this different?” Again, he was always smarter than others realized.

“I… can’t tell you.” You admitted quietly. “It’s not my story to tell.”

“I see… that is disappointing…”

The rest of the ride was silent. Within the next five minutes, however, you had made it back to Papyrus’ home. Getting out of the car you practically ran towards the front door, pulling at the knob only to remember it would, of course, be locked. Papyrus came up behind you and unlocked it, letting you in.

“Sans?!” You called out frantically. “Papyrus, can you look in the kitchen and garage?” He nodded and you dashed up the stairs only to see an unsettling sight. Sans’ door was left cracked open. Hopeful, you went to it and opened it up the rest of the way. The already scarce to begin with room only had less stuff in it. The closet was half gone and the bed looked off centered as if there was something hidden underneath it he took.

Sans was gone. He really had just left. Was it that important to him?

You sat on the ground again, unsure of what to do. Could you really tell Papyrus his brother had ran away? Taking a deep breath, you stood once more, stepped out of the room, and shut the door just in time for Papyrus to arrive.

“I do not see him. He is probably down at that greaseball, Grillby’s.” He smiled and you had a choice to make.

“Yeah. Do you mind giving me a ride home?” You couldn’t break his heart, you just had to find Sans on your own.

“Of course! Except…” The skeleton trailed off.

“What’s wrong?” You tried to swallow your sadness and guilt. Papyrus was hurting, too, and you needed to help him.

“I have… never slept home alone.” He admitted quietly, head hung lower.

“Would you like me to stay the night?”

“Please…” His response came out broken. There was no way you could deny him.

***

The morning came bright and early as Papyrus woke you up to drive you back to your place. You graciously accepted the offer, rubbing sleep from your eyes. The ride was quiet, but Papyrus continued in small ways to offer comfort as he pulled you close for a hug before you went inside the apartment building. The way he gripped at your back nearly made you cry.

This was someone who needed constant companionship, someone to be with them… and now Sans was missing.

It was hardly five minutes that you were in your apartment before Undyne texted you, asking if you had free time. Truthfully, you hadn’t felt up to a hang out, but when you tried to politely decline, Undyne texted back something that you knew you could no longer decline.

‘Alphys told me what happened. We need to talk.’

Sure enough, you washed up a little bit and managed the energy to take the subway to meet with your friend. In the usual spot, of course. The hidden away garden still looked in impeccable condition, even with the leaves of the large tree falling away. Everything was swept up into a neat pile in the corner of the square. You had been there only twice before, but it still felt safe… calm.

Undyne was waiting for you, sitting on the bench with her phone in her hands. You approached silently.

“Hey, punk. Why not pop a squat?” She patted the seat next to her and you accepted the invitation to sit down. “So… what happened between you and Sans? Which bee-tee-dubs, he left his gross coat in our closet.” Oh yeah, that happened. You kind of shrugged weakly, not sure where to start. “Uh-uh, no silent protagonist bullshit. Spill the proverbial, or real if you want, beans!” She glared daggers at you, leaning closer.

“I dunno. It was a confession. An accidental one and he freaked out and now I’m freaking out because he’s gone and up and left and junk!” Your leg began to bounce in anxiousness. “I just… maybe I don’t understand. Maybe he was right from the beginning.”  
“Listen, kid. Sans is… complicated. And that’s coming from someone who knows jackshit about him. Like… he kinda reminds me of the weirdo who keeps this garden maintained.” Undyne sat back up, but continued an intense gaze at her feet. You felt your fingers tighten around your arm. “See, Sans doesn’t like the spotlight. He’s kind of the type to do something just for the benefit of others. Real nice guy. Also an asshole, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, he’s probably freaked out cause maybe he doesn’t know how to handle being… vulnerable. I guess. I dunno.” Undyne shrugged, crossing her legs.

“That actually… makes sense.” You muttered in awe.

“Woah, wait… really? I was just kinda winging it. Hell yeah!” You furrowed your brows. “Heh, sorry. Anyway. Give him some time. He can’t keep away from Paps forever.” Standing up, you watched as Undyne stretched and continued to face away from you.

“I hope the party went well, by the way.” You attempted a change of the subject, not wanting to prolong any awkwardness. The monster seemed to ignore you, however.

“I know I said before that you should have been with Paps, but hey… if you don’t want him, then he doesn’t deserve you, kay? I may be your friend, but that’s the truth. Papyrus deserves only the best, you got that?!” She turned her head to give you a large, cheesy grin before waving bye and heading off. In some way… those words really hurt. You couldn’t explain why.

Instead, you found yourself wandering around that area of town quite a bit, stopping off at a Nice Cream stall just for the memories. The monster manning the stall handed you your treat with a smile and you managed one back. It was with shaking hands you accepted the treat and made your way home.

How many times before… how many times had he met you? Had he become friends with you? Spent maybe the entire summer together? Were you best friends? The closest of friends? Something more?

The way he had said it… that he wasn’t selfish anymore, it simply put you on edge about any and all expectations and previous theories. Those dumb, theories, they didn’t matter any more. It was no longer some kind of game you could play, put the puzzles back together. The puzzle required glue and tape, it needed to be stitched back into a single image of what was once there but now never existed.

The very concept made you nauseous.

Without even realizing it or thinking about it, ‘home’ ended up being Papyrus and Sans’ house. The Nice Cream was long gone and it was night time with an intense chill in the air. You shivered.

Again, without active thought, you approached the front door and turned the knob. This attempt, however, proved different. The door gave way, and you nearly tripped forward. You looked up again from your feet and nearly let out an audible sound of shock at the sight of Sans.

“Hey, pal.”


	31. One More Time, Sans Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE WANTED TO USE THIS CHAPTER TITLE FOR SO LONG CAUSE IT'S A DUMB PUN
> 
> Anywho, this is an angsty chapter. But don't worry, next one should be more lighthearted  
> AND THEN more angst probably. And then happy ending!  
> (Also I dunno how I wanted this chapter to be so I just kinda wrote it and?? I dunno how well I did but I hope you enjoy regardless!)

Immediately upon seeing his grinning face, you sped walked up to him and shoved as hard as you could. Sans nearly lost his balance but managed to recover quite quickly.

“Asshole!” You snapped, ready to actually try and hurt him. He didn’t budge. Instead, he frowned and waited, like he knew he should. “What the hell were you THINKING? You can’t just disappear like that! Do you have any idea how scared I was? How worried Papyrus was?! Do you even give a crap?” You were near tears again.

“I do.” Sans responded.

“What?” Anger still boiled up inside of you.

“I do know how scared you were. I do know how worried Paps was. I do give a crap.” His voice remained steady.

“Just… is Paps home?” You shoved your hands in your pockets, avoiding all forms of eye contact. Sans paused for a moment, then stepped into your view.

“I came back for him. Okay? I came back.” You hadn’t seen that level of intensity since the underground adventure gone wrong. “I couldn’t… Paps needs me. I… need him.”

“Start acting like it.” Pushing past him, you went up the stairs, not exactly sure where you were heading. That was, until you reached the top and went straight for the bathroom. You locked the door. In that moment, the specific moment you saw him, you had forgotten all that confusion about what he had meant at the party. Instead, all you cared about was what he did to Papyrus. There was no way around it, even though it was only 24 hours, he abandoned his brother. Papyrus was too kind to be mad… he knew exactly what had happened, but the denial was plainly painted on his face.

That was when you heard the front door open and the unmistakable sound of Papyrus’ voice. You splashed your face with water, dried it off, and left the bathroom only to stop short of the stairs. It seemed they were in the middle of a discussion.

“---wouldn’t tell me what you said. So do not worry.” Papyrus sounded upset. A sigh of relief left Sans. “I missed you.”

“I wasn’t gone long, bro.”

“You were gone.” You could feel the tension even from the top of the stairs.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Paps.”

“I’m not the only one you should be apologizing to.”

There was a long silence and you almost considered walking down there just to try and ease the tension. Papyrus was acting so stern, but you knew deep inside he had to have been hurting. If you were that upset, he had to be as well.

“It’s hard seeing them… hard being around them and seeing you with them and I can’t tell ya why.”

“If you care so much for them, tell them. The first step in any wooing is to start wooing!” Papyrus made it sound like the most obvious choice in the world.

“I couldn’t do that to you.” Sans barked all of a sudden. “I’m not doing that.”

“I am not saying I’m giving up, you bonehead. I, The Great Papyrus, never back down from a challenge! But… The human is the one who decides. It isn’t up to us, brother.” Following your overused puzzle metaphor, it was as if all of the edges were put together, and all you had left was the center.

Whatever had happened in previous timelines, or rather… alternate ones, didn't matter. In the present day, THAT present day, both Papyrus and Sans had feelings for you. And Sans was afraid to have those feelings. Understandably so.

You felt like the air was thinner, that you needed to go back to the bathroom, but you didn’t. You couldn’t.

“You deserve to be happy…” You could barely make out Sans’ words. He had gotten so quiet over the last couple of minutes.

“I am happy, Sans. When you are happy, especially.”

“I am… so sorry…”

“There is clearly a reason you cannot talk to me, however… I hope you will tell me one day.” You could hear Papyrus fiddling with something. Perhaps organizing the movies on the shelf.

“Yeah. One day.”

Without even thinking, you began to trot down the steps, stopping as you touched down on the bottom and came into view. You turned your head to look at the brothers and felt the tension weighing you down.

Was it stupid to think everything could be happy all the time with them?

“Human! H-how long have you been here?” Papyrus exclaimed, setting down the dvd he had in his hand. Sans gave you a knowing look, tilting his head a bit to the left.

“I was just… I was, uh, in the bathroom.” You used your thumb to gesture back at the stairs.

“You heard.” Sans said simply. Papyrus glanced back and forth between the two of you, face brightening as he finally settled on staring at you. Guess there was no hiding it.

“Yeah.”

“Then… do ya have a response?”

“You’re both kind of dumb.” You muttered, crossing your arms over your chest. “Can’t say I understand any of it… really.” You made direct eye contact with Sans, who shyly frowned.

“You don’t have to choose now, or ch-choose either of us. It’s up to you…” Papyrus was being his polite self, struggling to keep calm as he rapidly alphabetized the bookshelf. Cleaning always did calm him down.

“Paps…” You started, fists clenching at your sides. Your mind replayed the events of months and months spent with those two. The mind games that Sans played on you, the way he tried to keep his distance but never could truly stay away. How Papyrus treated you with the utmost amount of respect, being the perfect gentleman he could be, and always telling you how amazing you were.

But you and Sans… you were something. And he remembered and he was hurt. Being selfish was of his highest concern, because you saw it now, just how much he cared for his brother. Sans hadn’t come back for YOU he came back for HIM. It was true what Undyne had said, you felt that Papyrus deserved so much better and he could easily get it.

And Sans… that bonehead, that asshole, that absolute garbage, from day one he looked at you like you meant something to him and you had never picked up on all the cues. All the small signs he showed you, trying and hoping desperately that you’d remember somehow. Even in that moment, he looked to you with that expression.

“Human?” Papyrus called out to you.

“Paps, I’m so sorry.” You must have had the smallest voice in the world, but he still heard you, smiling in a sad way.

“I understand.” He approached you, pulling you into a warm embrace, his chin barely resting on the top of your head. “Perhaps one day, I’ll meet someone who is close to as amazing as you.”

“You’ll find someone amazing. You deserve it…” You whispered into his chest. Pulling back, but with his hands still on your shoulders, he smiled at you.

“You’re amazing. But it was not meant to be.” He placed a pseudo kiss atop your head and then left up the stairs without giving you a chance to respond. Sans let out a sigh.

“Am I supposed to feel like a jerk right now?” He muttered, sitting down on the couch.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe.” He repeated you. “If you have questions… I’ll answer them.”

“In the other timelines… what were we?” You sat beside him, asking that same question you had before he disappeared.

“Sometimes we were something. Other times we were not. It doesn’t matter what we WERE. That never existed. after all.”

“You remember them so… they happened.” You reminded him, staring down at your shaking knees. Your heart was racing a million miles an hour and your head felt foggy as you spoke and listened. “I know you’re scared… but, uh… I just want you to know I’m going to help if I can. We’re going to stop the resets.” It was blind assurance that you knew you couldn’t promise, and yet… you needed to say it. You needed to let him know that you weren’t going to leave him to face the challenge alone.

“Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry...” The rest of the evening was spent with your heads resting on each other, and fingers intertwined.


End file.
